A presentation made by Graham Oakes to the APM South Wales and West of England branch membership on 20th April 2014.

1. Supporting Reviews & Assurance
The Role of the PMO
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2. Outline
! Projects fail
! That’s OK
! Portfolio mgt is easier than project mgt…
! … provided you can get the right information
! Setting up an assurance programme
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3. Why do projects fail?
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Simon Schoeters

4. We lose touch with reality
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Christiaan Triebert

5. Failure becomes obvious
when we run back into reality
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Simon Schoeters

6. Failure is OK!
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L Gnome

7. There are 2 types of failure:
Inherent & Unnecessary
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macrophile

8. Statistics don’t work for
project managers
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Steve A Johnson

9. Statistics do work for portfolio
& programme managers
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James Bowe

10. Portfolio & programme
managers have more tools
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veryuseful

11. But they often don’t have the
information they need
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IsaacMao

12. But they often don’t have the
information they need
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derekGavey

13. But they often don’t have the
information they need
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maveric2003

14. But they often don’t have the
information they need
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Jeroen_bennink

15. That’s where the PMO helps –
providing clear information
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Grand Canyon NPS

16. Right Information – Skills –
Process – Stakeholders
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IvanWalsh.com
16
Kheel Centre,
Cornell University

17. The role of assurance is to
provide validated information
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owenwbrown

18. PMOs can work at three levels
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ell brown

19. How do we set up an effective
programme of reviews?
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Colin_K

20. 1) Make reviews the norm
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Lars P.

21. 2) Be clear who you’re serving
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Bird Brian

22. 3) Tune investment to risk
levels
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digitalmoneyworld

23. 4) Use a mix of review types
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vie_ascenseur

24. 5) Negotiate clear objectives
for each review
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Richard_of_England

25. Control parameters
Baseline
Criteria
Reference
Models
Feedback
to improve
reference
models
Review execution
Inputs
Outputs
Artefacts & other
items to review, plus
supporting details.
Analysis Loop
6) Run a structured process
Recommendations to
improve review artefacts
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Go / No - go
decision.
Improved
artefacts.

26. 7) Focus on evidence
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Simon Schoeters

27. 8) Manage logistics
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strudelt

28. 9) Minimise overheads
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jcroninone

29. 10) Train people
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One Laptop per Child

30. 11) Act on findings
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mikebaird

31. 12) Monitor effectiveness
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SearchEnginePeopleBlog

32. 13) Disseminate lessons
learned
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The U.S. Army

33. Assurance supports
stakeholder communications
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Keoni Cabral

34. Summary
! We engage with risks to achieve rewards
! Sometimes the risks win
! Aim is to eliminate unnecessary failure
! Program & portfolio mgrs have a lot of tools
! They need information in order to use them
! Reviews & assurance provide this information
! PMOs can do a lot to set up effective reviews
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35. Unnecessary Failure…
… happens when people with the skills,
resources and authority to act effectively
don’t get full, validated information about
project status and issues.
The role of reviews and assurance is to
provide this information.
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36. Thank you
graham@grahamoakes.co.uk
@GrahamDOakes
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37. Graham Oakes Ltd
! Making sense of technology…
" Many organisations are caught up in the
complexity of technology and systems.
" This complexity may be inherent to the
technology itself. It may be created by the pace of technology change. Or it may arise from
the surrounding process, people and governance structures.
" We help untangle this complexity and define business strategies that both can be
implemented and will be adopted by people throughout the organisation and its partner
network. We then help assure delivery of implementation projects.
! Clients…
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Cisco Worldwide Education – Architecture and research for e-learning and educational systems
Council of Europe – Systems for monitoring compliance with international treaties; e-learning systems
Dover Harbour Board – Systems and architecture review
Greenpeace – Project reviews, enterprise architecture, digital strategy
MessageLabs – Architecture and assurance for partner management portal
National Savings & Investments – Helped NS&I and BPO partner develop joint IS strategy
The Open University – Enterprise architecture, CRM and product development strategies
Oxfam – Content management, CRM, e-Commerce
Thames Valley Police – Internet Consultancy
Sony Computer Entertainment – Global process definition
Amnesty International, Endemol, Intel, tsoosayLabs, Vodafone, …
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