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Advanced Project Portfolio Management and the PMO
team status meetings and observe for project risk. The mentor can add significant value to how progress visibility is communicated. Savvy project managers will see the mentor as a friend and will find ways to use recent progress knowledge to their benefit. The project management community should see the mentor as a project management doctor whose purpose is to help the project manager, project sponsor, and team member stay healthy. 6. Governance Board guidance — Knowing that the senior management team is reviewing projects is great for motivating the teams to push harder to keep their projects in control. Further, when a PM knows that he or she could be under the unwanted glare of the Governance Board spotlight, he or she becomes very proactive in seeking ways to overcome difficulties and accelerate. 7. Project management community peer pressure — When the PMO begins the portfolio management process, information on the status of projects falls into one of several groups: Green (okay), Orange (caution), or Red (in trouble, help is required). As the PMO begins operating, bi-weekly project management community meetings should be conducted with project managers. In these bi-weekly meetings, project managers learn which projects are doing well, which projects need investigation, and which projects are in trouble. They will also learn about project acceleration opportunities and threats to project delivery. This means that they will know which projects are under the spotlight of senior management. Peer pressure in this situation can be very motivating. You can bet that the project manager perceived to be in last place among his peers will work his or her hardest to not be in the same position by the next meeting time. This is exactly what the PMO wants. Improving the weakest link makes the chain stronger. The PMO must take great care not to put the project manager into a defensive posture as this could backfire and cause the peer group to choose sides in favor of the victim. 8. Project work estimates — Who is managing the work estimate quality of work tasks in the project schedule? How were people asked to estimate their work? What rules or parameters were provided to those who estimated the work tasks in the project schedule? We have learned that once a schedule becomes public, it tends to become fact whether it is draft or final. Those creating the schedule along with the associated work estimates are held responsible for the estimate expectations. Consider what people are really doing when they estimate their level of effort (LOE) for the work they might do themselves or that might be accomplished by someone else. In general, work typically expands to meet the estimate. This is known as Parkinson’s Law. As we stated earlier, conquering Parkinson’s Law is critical to a project manager’s ability to deliver a completed project on time.