GovernIT

The first part of this series provided an overview of the PMO, types of PMOs and typical functions.

The second part looked at the role of PMO in setting up and monitoring Change Management processes and activities.

The third part discussed the Quality Management responsibilities of a PMO and provided a table of contents to a Quality Management Plan

This post shares some information and experience on how the PMO can review projects and what to focus on in such reviews.

One of the most important functions of the PMO is to periodically review projects, to be able to answer the  following questions:

1. Where is the project wrt where it should be?
2. Will the project deliver on its objectives – timelines, quality etc?

We have all worked on projects, where the status is green for weeks and even months and suddenly moves to  “Red” one fine day.

The best early warning system is effective and in-depth reviews by the PMO for each project in its portfolio. The frequency of such reviews depends on:

Size of the project

If the project is large and complex, one review meeting with all stakeholders is not effective. There is usually too much discussion on some items, especially those that are over the tolerance levels, while routine ones are not given much time. Instead, multiple reviews with separate teams will provide the necessary focus and insight into that area.

Separate reviews also help you to validate information being provided by one team with others. with a single meeting, contradictory statements are not voiced due to fear or a desire to avoid conflict.

If the project is small or medium sized (<30 – 40 people and less number of cross-domain teams), a single review can be effective as all stakeholders can present information quickly.

A typical review should not be more than 3 hours, as information overload sets in and people become mentally tired.

Criticality to business

Review depth also depends on how important the project is to the business. For example, a public-facing market solution will need to be monitored much closely than a project for generating MIS reports.

Current status

• If the project is progressing smoothly, with interediate deliverables on time and within quality limits, you may want to schedule a monthly meeting with offline status reports weekly.
• If the project is just about surviving, weekly reviews are necessary to tightly control the ship.
• Iif the project is behind on timelines or there are escalations from customers (can be internal such as marketing, end-users etc), day-wise monitoring may be required.

This does not mean having long meetings everyday, but you may request for daily status reports to be circulated to the governance team, with meetings held twice in the week.

What should you review

At the minimum, the review should focus on

• Verify status of tasks with respect to the Plan
• Reviewing Key accomplishments during the reporting period
• Understanding key deliverables and activities during the next period and the progress on them till now to determine if they will still be met. A good way to do this would be to ask for Estimated time to complete in-progress activities and verify against the plan
• Check for Dependencies for the upcoming activities to see if there are any impacts due to external and internal dependencies (such as staff from another team, software or hardware availability etc)
• Status of top issues and any new issues added
• Status of top risks and any updates to the Risk profile
• Change requests created/modified during the period
• Quality indicators such as defect trends, incident escalations etc

How to review effectively

• Instead of having a template which can restrict information, ask the project to develop something incorporating the above. The main point of this is to ensure they don’t feel constrained to report in a manner they feel uncomfortable with
• The report can be simple to start with, but must be able to provide enough information for the PMO to decide on the true status of the project.
• Status is usually shown in Traffic-light symbols, but this generally is not accurate or atleast consistent. Insist on objective criteria to determine what is yellow and what is red.
• Watch for tasks that rapidly change in progress completion, especially ones that slide downwards.
• When people use vague qualifiers like “I think it should be done in a couple of days” or “I believe we are on track”, look at start and end dates of the activity to gain an idea of the effort consumed. Ask for time to complete to gain a true understanding of the remaining work
• A major factor in missed deadlines is underestimating the time it takes to solve operational issues. A solid issue management mechanism will help PMO understand the blocking issues that could impact the delivery
• How is product doing with respect to Quality? Are defects being captured accurately? Schedule and review external audits that verify this one process specifically, since defects may not always be reported under the belief that they are minor
• Take the time to review customer feedback, if any and see how it dovetails into the performance of the project
• Periodically reviewing risks is one of the most important tasks of the PMO. Risk profile must be kept updated when more information is received on a subject that is impacted by a risk

Important Note:

The critical part, I cannot overemphasize this, is that the project must feel that the PMO will do anything to help the project solve issues and move forward. This may mean releasing additional funds or add experts for short durations to solve problems. If the project team feels that the PMO is only reviewing/policing, it will find ways to hide information.

You can find an example of a status report template (and some other good ones) at Derek Huether’s blog Critical Path.

Conclusion

A project review is a good opportunity for the PMO to demonstrate leadership to the projects. Transparent communication, accountability, decision-making and support are necessary elements to conduct a good project review.

What’s your take? What have I missed completely? Do you have something more to add?

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