This essay focuses on the need of establishing a project management office at AtekPC along with its culture and project management practices that influenced the implementation of PMO.
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Running head: Analysis of Project management office Analysis of Project management office Name of Student Name of the University Author note
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1 ANALYSIS OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT OFFICE In order to ensure the business practices, procedures and operation will go in the right direction, it is necessary for the organization to have a project management office. The project management office (PMO) of the organization is a group, especially comprising with the managerial level people (Pemsel & Wiewiora, 2013). The PMO can be external or internal to the organization, which are responsible for setting, maintaining as well as ensuring the project standards for the particular organization. In addition to that, it is responsible for gathering repeatable, tangible and long term profit to the business (Too & Weaver, 2014). In addition to that, for identifying as well as developing the necessary project management methodology, standards and best practices the role of a project management office is well understood (Špundak 2014). This essay is going to focus on the need of establishing a project management office at AtekPC along with its culture and project management practices that influenced the implementation of PMO. The agile philosophy in context to the organization is going to be discussed. Lastly, the essay will also outline the issues that might encounter due to the expansion of AtekPC’s project management office towards the non-IT projects. AtekPCwasfoundintheyear1984andthegrowingpopularityhelpedthe organization to reach at the maturing stage from the growing stage. The company has about 200 and 210 full time and part time employee respectively. Despite of evidencing noticeable growth in past, same as other PC makers, this company also had to face struggles due to the proliferationofmodernizedtechnologies,especiallythemobilephones,web-based applications and PDAs, hindered the popularity of PC. Due to this, the particular PC industry was undergoing through consolidation and facing higher cost pressure. Therefore, the managers of AtekPC came up with the idea of introducing the cost reduction strategy to their business, and aimed that this strategy will be beneficial in improving their business operation and supply chain.
2 ANALYSIS OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT OFFICE The main reason behind looking for the establishment of the project management office is the degradation in the business functionalities. The PMOs are efficient in integrating the information and data from a corporate strategic project and providing support to the balanced score card (Jalal & Koosha 2015). In addition to that, it trains and monitors the project managers, staffs and their activities. The immense cost pressure, inefficient business strategies were resulted in the loosing of market position and reputation of the company (Darling & Whitty, 2016). Hence, in order to get their position as well as business sustainability back, it was vital for the organization to become comparatively creative, adaptive as well as agile while launching new product. However, for getting market attention by launching new products, there was no better way for the organizational managers of AtekPC than establishing the project management office. Dependinguponthebusinesstype,complexityandmarketposition,every organization has different culture and structure. However, the typical understanding of organizational culture includes an organization’s philosophy, values, experiences as well as expectations that guides the employee behaviour, and express and enhance their self-image, inner workings and interactions within and outside the organization (Hogan & Coote, 2014). Moreover, the culture is based on shared customs, attitudes, beliefs, as well as the unwritten and written rules which are developed over the time and are considered to be valid (Awadh & Alyahya, 2013). As per the case study given, the PC developing company, AtekPC was going through a difficult phase of their business due to the dec5reased PC demand and shaken market position. Therefore, for getting rid of that situation, the PC making organization was engaged in applying different tactics, which was unaccustomed to the standardization, disciplined process and consistent. However, the IT managers of AtekPC felt that, in order to get back the profitability the market reputation and managing the organizational projects, the organization has to relay on the consistent process and standardization.
3 ANALYSIS OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT OFFICE However, implementation of the PMO in the organizational environment of AtekPC was initially challenging. Adoption the idea of implementing the PMO in a non-PM environment gathered several issues for the IT managers as well as the project managers of the organization and the process was totally against the culture of AtekPC. The first major challenge that was hindering the establishment of a PMO was deciding its nature and type that is which kind of PMO will be best suit fit for the organizational structure and culture. Therefore, to address this issue, several assessment of the organisation was carried out. In particular, it was vital for the IT managers of the organization to initiate a Project Assessment Program. The main agenda of this was to underline and discuss about the recently undertaken projects. For gathering more evidence, a structured interviews was held with different project stakeholders and the project assessment was also performed by considering several external resources. However, initially, AtekPC was no project management for carrying out the organizational complex projects and the main reason was that the organizational culture was not supporting the same. The key cultural barrier to the PMO was the particular organization itself was heading towards adopting new services and project management practices. The managers along with the staffs had a little knowledge about the project management process and the use of several project management tools. In addition, the budget was also another issue while adopting this practice. The promotional forces, that were being provided by the PMO was training, coaching and monitoring. Moreover, despite of the fact that, project management was a vital part for enhancing the change process and immense pressure over the organization to change the business process, still there was no consensus among senior management of the organization. These practices were influencing the implementation of one efficient project management office in the PC making organization AtekPC. Currently, almost all the IT organizations are adopting the agile approach for their project management practices. Agile enhances the method of performance of not only the
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4 ANALYSIS OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT OFFICE development team but also several other departments such as, Finance, HR and even PMO (Conforto et al., 2014). Agile describes the process of helping the project team for managing the undertaken projects by breaking the whole project into number of different stages. It also involves the constant collaboration approach with the stakeholders for improving the project management activities (Serrador & Pinto, 2015). In addition, it ensures the continuous improvement as well as iteration at every single stage of the project management. This methodology starts by focusing on the client demand regarding the end product that is how it will be used, and what issues it is going to address, thereby clarifying the customer expectations from the project team (Stare 2014). This approach mainly focuses on the planning, developing and evaluating the project, for making the final deliverables fit into the customer expectation. However, in this case, continuous collaboration is the key; both between the project stakeholders and the team members (Conforto & Amaral, 2016). As a whole, it can be said that, the agile is one efficient project management approach that is developed with the main agenda of providing effectiveness and flexibility to the project managers for developing customer satisfactory projects (Kerzner 2017). As the name of the approach suggests, it provides easier and quicker approach for undertaking the project work. Following are some agile principles that will facilitate the IT projects of the AtekPC. Providing timely and continuous delivery of the effective software by prioritizing the customer demands. Welcomes the change in requirements needed for the development process for providing competitive advantages. Delivering required software within a shorter timescale. Provide collaborative working approach to the stakeholders and the managers. It creates the most effective method for conveying information within the team.
5 ANALYSIS OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT OFFICE Put emphasis on the most recent technical innovation and provide attention to the design methods and technical excellence. Considering the case scenario of the discussed organization AtekPC, agile approach will be the best one for their project management. In order to acquire market sustainability, the company needs to change its business policy. Therefore, to support the fast changing technological environment of this organization, agile will be the best solution. Apart from that, the agile approach is also beneficial for the projects that do not have any clear scope and evolved over the time (Stoica, Mircea & Ghilic-Micu, 2013). However, for gaining the customer support back, it is important for the organization to release its product in a faster and timely manner. Agile incorporates an efficient as well as continuous development approach that ensures that the team will able to deliver workable products. As this approach breaks the entire project into number of iterations, the project risks are also minimized. Agile supports the continuous improvement and collaboration that will lead to the innovation of new products and enhancement of the old ones. In addition to that, it provides the facilities of co-locating the teams, and supports idea creation and brainstorming. One major benefit that the IT managers can get by adopting the agile philosophy is in terms of continuous customer support. The traditional methods for managing the projects mainly focuses that the project team will get in touch to the customer in the initial project management stages. In such cases, if the team fails to capture the customer expectations or requirements properly in the initial stage, it will be difficult to deliver effective outcome. On the other hand, agile philosophy allows the project team to get in contact with the stakeholders and the customers throughout the process. It also facilitates iterative deliveries, which ensures that the ongoing project is on track, thereby ensuring the effective delivery of the end product. However, for getting more advantages from the agile approaches, the PMO of the organization need to analyse the scope as well as the crucial requirements of the project. In
6 ANALYSIS OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT OFFICE addition, it is vital to ensure about the product backlog that is whether it is prioritized, estimatedandeffectiveor not.Moreover,gatheringmoreknowledgeabouttheagile methodology, its tools, uses and others will become helpful for the IT managers as well as PMO for adopting this approach. According to the case scenario, the PC designing organization AtekPC is heading towards the establishment of one project management office, which will be helpful for it to regain its market position. Not only for carrying out the IT projects, but also the PMO will be helpful for the organization in carrying out the non-IT projects. Before expanding the scope of the PMO in managing the non-IT projects, the organization need to address some of its cultural as well as structural issues. There is no timeline or roadmaps for the maturation of PMO, in addition, there is no methods for measuring its performance. The next issue is that, there is no particular approach for finding out to whom the PMO was accountable. Apart from these issues, some other issues such as, the benefit realisation, demand as well as supply planning,programandprojectprioritization,resourcemanagementaswellasthe organizational alignment can also create hindrance for the expansion of PMO towards the non-IT projects. However, creating the maturity model for the PMO and adopting the organizational standard, that best suits its structure, culture and business process might helpful for the PMO to undertake the non-IT projects of PMO. Increasing the value and effectiveness of the PMO to AtekPC, and staying connected with the clients and business process can also become advantageous. Hence, analysing the above discussion, it can be concluded that, establishment of PMO can be effective for AtekPC, as it will become beneficial for the organization to get back to the market. The proliferation of web-based applications, mobile phones, PDAs have put greater impact on the selling of PC. Therefore, many PC making organizations such as, AtekPCarefacingdisastrousmarketconditions.TheestablishmentofPMOinthe
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7 ANALYSIS OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT OFFICE organizationwillprovideeffectiveandconstantprojectpracticefortheorganization. However, before planning for the PMO establishment, the managers of the organization need to concern about the organizational culture and the issues associated to it. Nevertheless, implementation of different processes such as agile methodology can enhance its activity. Agile philosophy focuses on breaking down the entire project into severaliterations so that the project work can be easier and risk can be minimized.
8 ANALYSIS OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT OFFICE Reference Awadh, A. M., & Alyahya, M. S. (2013). Impact of organizational culture on employee performance.International review of management and business research,2(1), 168. Conforto, E. C., & Amaral, D. C. (2016). Agile project management and stage-gate model— A hybrid framework for technology-based companies.Journal of Engineering and Technology Management,40, 1-14. Conforto, E. C., Salum, F., Amaral, D. C., Da Silva, S. L., & De Almeida, L. F. M. (2014). Canagileprojectmanagementbeadoptedbyindustriesotherthansoftware development?.Project Management Journal,45(3), 21-34. Conforto, E. C., Salum, F., Amaral, D. C., Da Silva, S. L., & De Almeida, L. F. M. (2014). Canagileprojectmanagementbeadoptedbyindustriesotherthansoftware development?.Project Management Journal,45(3), 21-34. Darling, E. J., & Whitty, S. J. (2016). The Project Management Office: it’s just not what it used to be.International Journal of Managing Projects in Business,9(2), 282-308. Hogan, S. J., & Coote, L. V. (2014). Organizational culture, innovation, and performance: A test of Schein's model.Journal of Business Research,67(8), 1609-1621. Jalal, M. P., & Koosha, S. M. (2015). Identifying organizational variables affecting project management office characteristics and analyzing their correlations in the Iranian project-oriented organizations of the construction industry.International Journal of Project Management,33(2), 458-466. Kerzner, H. (2017).Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons.
9 ANALYSIS OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT OFFICE Pemsel, S., & Wiewiora, A. (2013). Project management office a knowledge broker in project-based organisations.International journal of project management,31(1), 31- 42. Salamah, H., & Alnaji, L. (2014). Challenges in establishing, managing, and operating a ProjectManagementOffice.RecentAdvancesinEconomics,Managementand Development. Serrador, P., & Pinto, J. K. (2015). Does Agile work?—A quantitative analysis of agile project success.International Journal of Project Management,33(5), 1040-1051. Špundak, M. (2014). Mixed agile/traditional project management methodology–reality or illusion?.Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences,119, 939-948. Stare, A. (2014). Agile project management in product development projects.Procedia- Social and Behavioral Sciences,119, 295-304. Stoica, M., Mircea,M., & Ghilic-Micu, B. (2013). Software Development:Agile vs. Traditional.Informatica Economica,17(4). Tasic,V.(2014).Projectmanagementoffice–typologyandbenefits.Informatyka Ekonomiczna, (31), 173-182. Too, E. G., & Weaver, P. (2014). The management of project management: A conceptual framework for project governance.International Journal of Project Management, 32(8), 1382-1394. 1.
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