Building the Vision and the Strategy for a PMO ... - PMI-NIC

4 

Building the Vision and the Strategy 

for a PMO Implementation 

Mauro Fenzi, Alexandre Sörensen 

Ghisolfi, Valerio Crovasce 

(Comau Corporate) 

PMI-NIC © - Tutti i diritti riservati

Overview of PMO Implementation Model 

1. Current State Assessment 

2. Future State Vision 

3. Gap Analysis 

4. Implementation Strategy 

5. Implementation Plan (Plan-Do-Check-Act) 


Current State Assessment 


Vision, Enterprise Strategy and 

current PM Maturity 

Do you know what you want? 

THE VISION… 


The Vision 

• A vision transforms the organization. It provides a 

picture of what could be. 

• It uses the future to help analyze the present. 

• It is a vehicle that can drive an organization to 

move toward that dream. 

• As dreams come true or realities change, visions 

change. 

• It is a goal of the highest order. 

• A vision aligns people in activities that cut across 

the organization. 


The Vision: a metaphor 


A Vision 

In 1961, the most optimistic assessment of getting 

someone on the moon was at best 50-50. But 

Kennedy did not say, 

“Let’s beef up the space program.” 

He said, 

“that this nation should commit itself to 

achieving the goal, before this decade is 

out, of landing a man on the moon and 

returning him safely to Earth.” 


So…do you know what you want? 

Understanding the Company Strategy is essential to 

understand the PMO Vision, Strategy and Functions! 

Which is the Company Vision? 

Which are the Company Strategies? 

Regarding… 

– Markets 

– Customers 

– Products 

– Geography (local?, regional?, global?) 

- … 


… is it also what the others want? 

Which is the necessary Sponsorship level? 

Which is the actual Sponsorship level? 

– Is this initiative receiving the required technical, 

economical and political support from Senior 

Management? 

– Is this initiative likely to receive support by the 

Functional Managers? 

– Is this initiative likely to be appreciated by 

Project Managers and Team Members? 


Communicating the Vision 

• A global event was organized, involving more than 

60 “change agents” among the PM professionals, in 

order to present the “The Comau Global Project 

Management Strategic Initiative” and the new 

Vision. 


The Vision – Comau Case 


The Vision – Comau Case 


From Cluster to Network 


From Vision to Strategy – Comau Case 

1) ORGANIZATION: 

– Develop and disseminate a global culture, vision, strategy and 

empower the Comau ability to perform global developments and 

integrations. 

2) PROCESSES: 

– Develop a high performance, global project management team. 

A team able to plan and execute highly complex projects, to 

improve the global company maturity level and to create the 

basis for optimal Portfolio Management. 

3) SKILLS AND BEHAVIOURS: 

– Assess and enhance capabilities through continuous education 

both in soft and hard skills. 

4) COMMUNICATION: 

– Create infrastructure for project management Knowledge 

Sharing. 


From Vision to Strategy 

Which is the current Maturity? 

Which is the GAP considering the Vision? 

• The initial analysis is not so simple, it requires understanding 

of the business, political and economical environment. It 

must consider, at least, but not only, the follow aspects: 

– Organizational structures (Functional, Weak, Balanced, 

Strong, Projectized). 

– Methodologies in place (Policies, processes, systems, 

templates) 

– Current PM culture, regarding understanding and 

application of professional project management 

– Value of current practices 


ORGANIZATION 


Positioning the PMO for Success 

The sophistication of the PMO structure and its 

funding vary widely and are based on the overall 

goals to improve: 

– Project-by-project performance 

– Divisional project performance 

– Organizational project performance 

– Organizational project management maturity 

– Revenue and profit generation by projects 

Adapted from Rad and Levin, 2002 


PMOs at Multiple Organizational Levels 

So... Do you know where to establish your PMO? 

The Enterprise 

Division A Division B Division C 

Division D 

PMO? 

Unit A1 

Unit A2 

Unit A3 

The position of the PMO in the 

organizational structure will 

“naturally” define some PMO 

benefits & functions… 

Unit D1 

Project X 

Unit D2 Unit D3 PMO? 

Sub-unit D21 

Sub-unit D22 

Sub-unit D23 

Sub-unit D24 

Project Y Project Z PMO? 


Adapted from Rad and Levin, 2002 


The COMAU PMO Global Structure 

• The COMAU PMO PM Family 

is a global team with more 

than 200 people directly 

participating in the PM 

related decisions... 

CEO 

– 4 geographical PMO areas: 

Business 

Unit #1 

Business 

Unit #2 

Business 

Unit #3 

Contract & Project 

Management 

• Europe (Corporate), 

• North America, 

Corporate PMO 

• South America, 

• Asia, 

PMO Europe 

– 150 PMs, 

PMO North America 

– 20 Program Managers, 

– 20 Planners and 

Controllers. 

PMO South America 

PMO Asia 


The COMAU PMO Global Structure 


Levels of PMO Functions (high view) 

Many organizations consider the 

PMO in terms of a series of 

levels: 

Level 1 

PMO supports 

just one project 

Level 2 


several 

projects under 

the same 

program 

(a Program Office) 

Level 3 


a division or 

department 

with all of its 

projects 

Level 4 


the organization 

in its projects 

Level 5 


business 

strategy 

decisions and 

resource 

allocations at 

the enterprise 

level 


Comau Corporate PMO Level 

Comau Corporate and Regional PMOs 

(regional strategies and actions) 

Level 1 


just one project 

Level 2 


several 

projects under 

the same 

program 

(a Program Office) 

Level 3 


a division or 

department 

with all of its 

projects 

Level 4 


the organization 

in its projects 

Level 5 


business 

strategy 

decisions and 

resource 

allocations at 

the enterprise 

level 


PROCESSES 


PROCESSES 

• Develop a high standard, international class compliant project 

management culture/approach 

• Develop a culture capable of synchronizing language, both 

internally and with customers 

• Improve the governance 

The choice fell quite naturally on the adoption of PMI® and its 

standards as a reference model 


PROCESSES 

+ = 

PMI® standards 

Organization Best 

Practices 

Comau Policy of 

Project Execution 


PROCESSES 

Getting high-level 

sponsorship to the Policy 

Measuring the “as-is” 

situation 


PROCESSES 

Managing the Portfolio: 

Providing high level reporting to 

the Company’s Board of Directors 

for project governance 

Aligning Project Management to 

Business Strategy, for project 

portfolio selection 


SKILLS AND BEHAVIOURS 



• A skill is an ability to translate knowledge into 

action that results in a desired performance. 

• members of high performance teams have the right 

mix of skills, including technical skills, problemsolving 

and decision-making skills, and 

interpersonal skills. 



• HARD SKILLS: 

– Creation of the Comau PM Academy 

– Getting the Comau PM Academy as a certified PMI REP 

– Develop internal trainers and global internal courses 

– Deploy courses to all Comau Professionals involved in teamwork 

– Promote PMP certification among PMs and team members 

• SOFT SKILLS: 

– Perform worldwide behavioural assessments to all Comau 

Professionals involved in teamwork 

– Create dedicated development plans, in cooperation with 

Corporate and local HR. 

– Perform Team Building activities for major project teams 


COMMUNICATION 


COMMUNICATION 

• INWARD COMMUNICATION: 

– Develop a global PMO Sharepoint Site as a tool for knowledge 

and information sharing 

– Create the PM Family as a mean of global integration and 

professional awareness 

– Create a Knowledge Market cutting across Business Units and 

geographical locations 

• OUTWARD COMMUNICATION 

– Start benchmarking with external Companies 

– Develop links with Business and Academic institutions 

– Start cooperation with PMI 


Vision beyond Vision 

• PMOs tend to fail on a long run 

• How can we envisage a sustainable vision for a 


• Innovate the Vision by Continuous Improvement 

and Business Innovation 


A sustainable PMO 

Management of Strategic Initiatives: 

• Aerospace business development 

• DIversifying Comau (DICO) 

• Service Business Model transfer (from Brazil to China) 


PMO Charter 

Business Background 

Market today is requiring more product and services diversification. Technology is becoming easy 

available in many countries and in diverse segments. In the vision, a company must be able to use a 

network environment and using the expertise, be able to offer alternative solutions to customers. 

Knowledge management and experience are becoming even more important. Our business is 

requiring a global project management strategy. 

Business Need 

Develop and disseminate a global culture, vision, strategy and empower the Comau ability to perform 

global developments and integrations. 

* Be global: To unify the global Comau network and management approach. 

* Provide a better performance to customers. 

* Improve projects governance; transparency and risk management. 

* Achieve projects economical and financial targets. 


The PMO Charter 

Project Objectives 

* Global unification of the PM processes, methodology. 

* Develop strategic projects. 

* To monitor the global workload. 

* To monitor the global Portfolio for the most important projects. 

* To develop the Comau PM Academy. 

Deliverables 

* Develop and implement the Company Project Management execution policy (Global Policy). 

* Develop the PMO Global Structure. 

* Standardization the Portfolio Report System (global). 

* Develop the Comau Project Management Academy: continuous development of knowledge and skills. 


The PMO Charter 

Completion Criteria - Success Criteria 

Implement the project objectives in 2 years time-frame. Starting in the USA and European facilities. 

Following Brazil and China. 

Assumptions 

The level of sponsorship will be maintained. 

Constraints 

Additional resources shall be approved and shall be funded by BU/Country. 


PMO Responsibility Assignment Matrix 

Sponsor 

VP 

PMO Corporate 

Define business objectives, Provide resources. Perform key decisions. 

Is the global owner of the PM Family. Must guide global strategies and actions to 

integrate the project team developing and executing the project plan. Perform stakeholder 

analysis contacts and making sure the proposals will be properly developed and well 

received. Perform risk identification, mitigation and controlling. 

Main Project 

team 

PMOs, Program 

Managers and 

Project 

Managers. 

Support to 

Operations Team 

They are local change agents and owner of the PM initiatives. Must contribute to define 

and execute the project strategies and actions. 

The support team will offer guidance in the development of the business strategy, 

approach, management techniques and IT support issues. 

* For all WBS identified tasks in the project schedule. 


PMO Strategy Implementation Plan 

High level and detailed 

Road Map developed for 

PMO Strategy 

Implementation and 

shared with all 

stakeholders 


Some actions… 


Some improvement actions… 

The PM Family 

Develop Strategic 

Actions and Projects 

PMO Global 

Organization 

Leadership Identification and 

Empowerment! 

Communication – Diversification of 

communication Channels (all company and always) 

Empowering Change Agents 

KPI’s 

Comau Book 

of Best Practices 

Portfolio Man. Improvements 

Global standardization for Programs and Projects 


Resume of our most important actions: 

1. Identification and Sharing of Best Practices in a global 

environment 

2. Better work processes, development of a global execution 

policy, simple and efficient, applied for projects, programs 

and portfolio management approach. 

3. Continuous development of the Comau Project Management 

Academy, internal seminars, meetings involving all 

company levels. 

Today Comau is sharing best practices with the market and 

being positively recognized for that! (Comau, Customers and Providers) 


High level view of the implementation 

phases: 

First measurement , baseline and analysis. 

Improvements actions. 

Continuous measurement, analysis 

and new improvements… 

(on-going operation) 

(Plan, Do, Check, Act, …) 


Results and Lessons Learned 

Level 1 – Common Language 

Important maturity growth between 2007 and 2009 surveys, 

specially when comparing to our industry. 

Comau is leading the change in our business. 

Maturity Growth between 15% and 38% (different growth for 

different countries, projects teams, etc.) 

Comau PM Academy is really adding value! (we will apply more 

efforts in our Academy). 



Level 2 – Common Processes 

We have achieved consistent numbers, results from different 

countries are similar. 

We have a global approach! 

Comau has today almost the best score in this market. 



Level 3 – Singular Methodology 

Similar results when comparing to the first benchmark 

(2007). 

In order to improve this result, we will apply more efforts to 

develop all other different departments and provide more soft 

skills training programs in our academy. 


Some Lessons Learned… 

“Project management success is the Company 

Success”, today we have a better understanding that 

each project and customers are the most important 

ones we have – No chance to failures” – This 

philosophy is easy to understand but not so easy to 

translate in real actions…” 

“We consider our success case as a collection of simple 

actions! With a very well defined scope, start and 

end…” “It is the success of many small actions…” 



Start the change from individual people development 

to reach the company development. 

First steps are about discipline. More quality must 

arrive in the following rounds after some learning 

curve… take this into consideration while planning 

your actions list. 

In a global environment, a global policy must be good 

enough to support all high level needs. At the same 

time needs have to be as simple as possible, so that 

later countries, business units or departments will be 

able to write their operational guidelines in details. 



Project Management is for the whole company and 

stakeholders. 

To develop Project Managers only is not enough! 

It is not about “controlling” the job, it is about 

working well from the very beginning. 



The Corporate PMO (Enterprise PMO) is providing an 

important value to the business through the 

integration, the empowerment to promote 

opportunities and performing strategic projects. 

When performing strategic projects the perception of 

value and the return on investment are directly and 

positively impacted. It is a natural consequence, since 

this strategic PMO can have a wide vision of the 

company entities, customers and products. 

THE POWER OF INTEGRATION! 



“The more global a Company is, more the PMO 

becomes a key agent!” 

“An Enterprise PMO in Comau is about connecting 

Strategy to Business Execution”, “Closing the GAP”. 

KEY WORDS: INTEGRATION, SIMPLICITY, BRINGING 

VALUE TO THE BUSINESS, FLEXIBILITY, SPEED FOR 

VALUE. 


Our PMO Global PM Family 

THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION! 

North America 

Europe 

Asia 

South America 



The Vision 

• A vision often encompasses paradox or dilemmas 

(ex. Low cost vs. high quality) 

• Good vision statements strive to reconcile the 

dilemma (see F. Trompenaars) 

LOW COST 

? 

LOW COST 

HIGH QUALITY 

HIGH QUALITY 


From Strategy to Functions 

How do we plan our PMO? 

Will it: 

– be directly responsible for project success? 

– have local teams or distributed ones? 

– perform micro or macro controlling? 

– perform Quality Management and/or Audits? 

– manage the resource pool? 

– be directly responsible for the PM team? 

– perform training to the team members, suppliers, customers? 

– assure the controlling of project deliverables? (configuration 

management, security?) 

A clear definition will help a lot the definition implementation of the PMO… 


From Strategy to Functions – Comau Case 

We planned our PMO to: 

– Supervise project management 

– have both local teams and distributed ones 

– perform Project Portfolio management 

– perform project management audits 

– oversee the resource pool with the creation of a 

dedicated PM Family 

– support the PM teams for project success 

– perform training to the team members, Suppliers, 

Customers through the creation of a Comau PM 

Academy 

– Act as data collector 

– Manage global knowledge sharing 

– Enhance communication concerning project 

management and related activities 

– Survey Customer satisfaction

Building the Vision and the Strategy for a PMO ... - PMI-NIC

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