Terry Doerscher

Craig Letavec
President of the PMI PMO Specific Interest Group

As I look over the agenda and topics, there seems to be more emphasis this year on the role of the PMO as a business service provider and strategic partner. I was both surprised and gratified to hear none other than Kent Crawford (ex-president of PMI, PMI Fellow and current CEO of PM Solutions) offer that the PMO needs to get beyond projects (and PMI) to accomplish effective resource management, as well as take an active role in facilitating strategy and operations. I have every expectation that Craig Symons of Forrester will continue the theme tomorrow. As you might guess, I touched on many of the same ideas in my presentation on Sunday, and finally lost count of the number of people who have came up since then to remark on the concept.

I take all of this as more evidence that the trend towards cross-functional convergence between individual management disciplines continues to gather momentum (and consensus) as it enters the mainstream of discussion. It has taken a decade, but I think we are finally near that elusive universal 'ah-hah' moment of general acceptance.

What, another one?

Yes, and I think you will find this one to be both compelling and a breath of fresh air. What began as the idea for an independent PMO association has grown into something that I believe is much more interesting and valuable. Furthermore, imagine having the chance to create rather than just join a group; there is still plenty of opportunity for you to become actively involved in shaping what this organization will be and what it will do. If your current affiliation seems too inflexible or one-dimensional, isn't addressing all of your needs or is leaving you feeling disenfranchised, then read on.

The goal of the Enterprise Management Association -- International (EMA-I) is to engage anyone who is involved in managing the cycle of change in a professional community that shares a common set of challenges and interests.

As the founding volunteers initially discussed ideas around the fledgling PMO association, what we came to realize is that there is no standard PMO in terms of its structure, charter, scope or span of interests. However, what we could all agree on were these three points:

• All PMOs are involved in some aspect of managing change in their organization
• Managing change requires the involvement of more than just the PMO
• While there is a lot of tactical guidance, existing associations are not adequately addressing the strategic challenges of managing change

That second item is important, as we can all relate to how difficult it is to establish convergence across the different levels, roles and perspectives of the organization about how to effectively manage change. That is one of the reasons that our membership model encourages team memberships -- it takes a shared common vision between executives, directors and senior managers to execute the cycle of change.

OK, so let me give you a few highlights about what makes EMA-I different and what you can do to become a part of it:

• EMA-I is for professional executives and senior managers that are passionate about effectively executing at a strategic level
• EMA-I will be member-focused and drive broad levels of involvement; we encourage members to actively participate and share their ideas and practices
• EMA-I is truly international; we have over 50 volunteers from around the world that are working to create this organization
• EMA-I recognizes that business management techniques are continually evolving -- one of our goals is to be a clearing house for new ideas and proven methods for effecting change, rather than creating a self-serving  certification that encourages a single methodology or approach
• EMA-I is inclusive; we know it takes the combined efforts of:
  • The entire management team as practitioners
  • Product and service providers
  • Consulting and training organizations

…all working together, sharing their expertise and learning from each other in order to be successful. Our objective is to erect a big tent where everyone is an equal participant, rather than creating an 'us-and-them' mentality. This is evident by the broad cross-section of esteemed volunteers we have attracted to reach a common goal.

EMA-I will officially launch in January, with charter membership attractively priced in order to give everyone an opportunity to get onboard from the very start. In the meantime, we still need volunteers in a number of different areas to continue building out our services and capabilities.

We at Planview are excited about the prospects of EMA-I, and have pledged to be a founding sponsor of the organization. We encourage other corporate sponsors to join us and I want to personally invite each of you to help make EMA-I happen. It's the right idea at the right time for the right reasons. To learn more, please go to our temporary EMA-I Web site. Learn about who we are and what we are doing, and if you like what you see, we encourage you to get involved! Simply click on the 'Volunteer' tab and fill out your contact information.

Remember that insect-shaped drone that flew out of my USB port in the July 20th post about the federal IT dashboard? Apparently, that little fella captured footage of me vigorously interrogating sentences for hours at a time until they divulged their meaning.  Then came the helicopters, with men in black balaclavas rappelling to my rooftop, yada, yada, yada. To make a long story short (worthy of Bond or Bourne, I might add), I was apprehended, detained, arraigned and eventually found guilty of conspiracy to commit literary pandemonium. A three-judge panel of librarians threw the book at me (specifically, a thesaurus), and then I was released.

Then we finished our book.

Yep. Pat Durbin (our founder and CEO) and I recently handed over a sizable manuscript to our editors, titled, Taming Change with Portfolio Management. It is still four or five months away from hitting the bookstores, but after over a year of effort, it felt good to look at twenty-two completed chapters. For those customers who attended our very successful 2009 Horizons event a few weeks ago, perhaps you caught Pat's keynote at Horizons Live or stopped by our booth and downloaded a sample.  For others, you can learn more about the book at our Taming Change Web site. That site will grow into the mothership as we get closer to publication.

Taming Change is a project with a moderately audacious goal; take what is sometimes considered a complex and ambiguous subject and distill it into a clearly defined set of straightforward and practical concepts and practices. Pat and I have worked to articulate our environment of continuous change, the effects this has on organizations, and how you can apply the discipline of portfolio management to proactively control it. Taming Change is an extensive body of work that we hope will transform the way you think about portfolio management. It is time to go beyond considering the technique as a series of fractured point solutions, and recognize it as a unified, comprehensive method for managing change through its lifecycle, from recognition to solution.

Like most endeavors that appear glamorous from the outside (i.e., the excitement of business travel), writing a book such as this is just plain old work once you get down to it. In addition to the long hours of research and writing, there were countless discussions to rationalize our approach and re-write chapters until we felt we had satisfied our objective. Ultimately, you will be the judge of whether or not we succeeded.

So, that's why there have been no posts lately; it got to the point that at the end of each day, I was just flat out of words. There will be much more to come about the book over the next several months.

OK, so what else can you look forward to now that I am back in the saddle? Some big subjects are on my list, including the formation of a new professional association for business leaders that I am very anxious to tell you about, a recent study from Margo Visitacion at Forrester on the Next Generation PMO, hot topics from the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo, and the upcoming PMI 2009 PMO Symposium in Atlanta. We will be there as a sponsor, so please stop by and see us if you are attending. I will be doing a presentation on Sunday just before the reception about 'Transforming the PMO at the Speed of Business' -- don't be surprised if a few of the core Taming Change concepts show up in that session. See you there!

In addition to being a bit of a romantic, the Bard of Avon also had ghost issues. Perhaps Macbeth was first to utter, "I See Dead People." Not me. I see portfolios. They're everywhere and they speak to me (not out loud of course -- that would be weird; just voices in my head).

For example…

Do you happen to be reading this in your work area? If so, you probably only need to divert your gaze a scant few degrees before your eyes fall upon 'the unit.' Ah, behold the obligatory commercial office shelving. Maybe it is a tall, five-shelf wall rig or the more compact 42-inch variety. Perhaps yours is neutral beige, a more dramatic black or a really tony ersatz wood grain number. It is no doubt lined with books. And more books. And stuff.

Is your poor credenza so crammed with books and binders that prestigious awards, cute and colorful college memorabilia or photos of your pet are being crowded out? Are piles of literature stacked on the floor next to it? Well, whether you realize it or not, this constitutes a portfolio management opportunity; you have a specific issue or objective related to a group of demands and some capacity-based value judgments to make.

The opportunity is to present your shelfgoods in a functional and vaguely professional manner, or at least so as to avoid office embarrassment (or in my case, eliciting outright laughter or pitiful head shakes). Perhaps you just need to make more room for recent library additions, a prized gold and maroon stuffed gopher mascot, or new 5x7 portraits of each of your eight cats. Yes, the condition of your 'unit' speaks volumes to your colleagues -- out loud, I might add.

In terms of demand and capacity, the content of this particular portfolio constitutes all the various and sundry items that are fighting for limited shelf space. Each element in the portfolio is analyzed for its cost-benefit (really now, do you still regularly refer to that "Altair BASIC Programming for Dummies" guide?), and ultimately decisions are made. Some things go and some stay in order to achieve a Zen-like balance and sense of workplace tranquility.

I bet that if you take a moment to think about your organization, you will be able to identify several other situations with the potential to benefit from applying portfolios, no doubt with greater significant business consequences and in need of more analytical insight than our featured decorative reference dilemma. The issues you face when managing the products, services and assets of your organization are not that different.

In every case, you are trying to achieve some objective or result, often using a combination of existing and new portfolio elements. The management goal is to make the best possible selection decisions about these items, usually in terms of benefit, cost and risk. Once selections are executed and delivered, portfolios help to analyze whether the results fulfill expectations as well as identify when new situations brought about by change require further action.

Bottom line, portfolios are not just about projects; they are really more about the reason behind the projects. Everywhere you turn there are potential portfolios; of product families, target markets, service offerings, resources, suppliers, strategies, and investments. Portfolios can include applications, equipment and other assets (like books and knick-knacks).

All you have to do is look around and they will speak to you too.

So what is there to like about this refreshing glimpse into how a small part of our taxable contributions are being spent? Perhaps the most important thing is that it is very intuitive and clear. If you are smart enough to care and call up the link, then no further training is needed. The graphics are sharp and follow your basic green-yellow-red stoplight approach, graded in terms of cost, schedule and the personal assessment of the respective agency CIO.

Next, it is drillable; once you select a specific agency to home in on, simply click on a slice of a pie or a bar chart to see the individual investments that populate that portion. Call up a specific investment and continue to burrow your way deeper into that particular project -- to a point.

Other things that caught my attention include very good performance, a window that includes a blog on related latest news and its pure web-based format without the need to download any dingle berries -- oh, wait a minute… this tiny insect-shaped drone just flew out of one of my USB ports and it is now just sitting on the wall, watching me. Intently. Oh well; at least it's not Active-X or Quick Time.

So, what are areas for improvement? For one thing, additional transparency. There are 781 total 'major' projects on the dashboard as of this writing, totaling 38.5 billion dollars. Yep, that's major alright. But, the penny-ante stuff is not included in those numbers; the DoD alone has $33.2 billion listed in total IT investments but only $9.6 billion of projects listed. In other words, 71% of their total IT innovation spend is flying under the radar of the dashboard; must be new stealth projects (or mini-drones). It would also be nice to create the portfolio based on different views other than agency -- for example, what do all the combined investments look like categorized as infrastructure, applications, etc. Any duplicate efforts going on?

Also, as we all know, operational spend is every bit as important, and it is not shown. Gee, if the Fed would simply show TCO for all of its IT services, we would have a new industry benchmark to use.

Next, there are a lot of empty fields; things like the contractors not being specified, and in particular, a lot of the CIO assessments are blank. I would give them a pass about it being new, except it's been up a few weeks now. Come on guys, public transparency is a priority now. I'm also a little perplexed by the selected key metrics. Apparently things like risk, quality and most importantly -- benefit are all wrapped up in the CIO assessment; but alas, no additional details of why a given project is ranked red by the CIO are forthcoming.

I noted how the project manager's name is also conspicuously absent -- with some understanding. If you think you catch a load of grief when a project goes south, imagine being the poor soul who would have to endure getting ragged on by 300 million constituents because you are behind schedule.

OK, have fun with it, and try not to think about the fact that the combined lifetime taxes paid by every reader probably wouldn't pay for one single project that is listed. Meanwhile, I have to go get out my .45 caliber Texas flyswatter and give a big howdy to some nano-infested, carbon fiber, 4G dragonfly buzzing around my house -- I just hope the darned thing isn't armed with teensy little hellfire missiles.