PM ADVISORY:

Establishing Project Management Processes: The First Step on the Road to Maturity

By Bryan Peterson
Director, Application Consulting
and
April Boland
Resource Manager

Journyx, Inc.
Austin, Texas, USA

Many of our clients are a “PMO of one,” meaning that one person has been tasked with establishing common project management processes and procedures across an organization. There is often a broad spectrum of project work being performed by different project teams with a range of maturity levels, so this is no small task.

The Project Management Institute (PMI) knows the value of process alignment and organizational maturity:

“Companies with greater maturity should expect to see tangible benefits that include better-performing project portfolios, efficiencies that come with better resource allocation, and increased process stability and repeatability.” [1]

The opposite is also true, that companies that are less mature often find themselves trying to do damage control rather than strategically planning and executing projects. They generally have groups of people working in their own silos, so there is no centralized view of resource availability or project status. Project managers are unable to prioritize projects or schedule them with accuracy, leading to lost opportunities and failure. In fact, a recent study on the subject has confirmed the need for defined repeatable processes, finding that companies who use them have a much higher project success rate than those who do not. [2]

If you are a “PMO of one,” how can you go about bringing teams and processes together and getting everyone on the same page?

To read entire paper (click here)

About the Author Bryan Peterson Author Bryan Peterson is the Director of Application Consulting for Journyx, Inc. He has been working with various clients in the areas of project execution, resource management, project time tracking, project cost accounting, and time & expense reporting for nearly a decade. Bryan can be contacted at bryanp@journyx.com.

About the Author April Boland Author April Boland is the Resource Manager for Journyx, Inc. She is a former Jeannette K. Watson Fellow who currently develops and coordinates communications strategies to meet organizational objectives. April can be contacted at april@journyx.com. Information about Journyx can be found at http://www.journyx.com/.