Introduction.
The material in this book describes a set of processes that comprise an effective Program Management Office (PMO) function for use in a corporate IT setting. Every business that has people performing Project Management (PM) activities has a need for these processes. In some instances, an organization may already have a PMO chartered with overall responsibility for each project managed in an enterprise. In those cases, this book will either provide validation of their efforts or it will provide some techniques and useful approaches that can be utilized to further improve on their overall implementation of the PMO. In the vast majority of cases in business, however, a PMO is unheard of. Each project managed in the enterprise is unfortunately managed separately from all others (at great cost in both time and money to the enterprise).

From the perspective of a corporate CIO or CTO, this lack of a PMO function leads to serious shortfalls in the overall management, administration, execution, standardization, and reporting of projects. To effectively administer all of the activities involved in just one project is difficult enough, but for the average CIO, it is quite often normal to have 10-20 projects running concurrently under the supervision of one or two program managers. Is it any wonder that most projects implemented in corporate America fail to meet their established, initial goals?

In order to successfully achieve the desired goals for each of these projects, an effective leader must rely heavily on well-defined, industry-proven, standardized processes to manage these projects. This book will show you, the business leader, how to quickly and effectively implement the basic building blocks for a PMO function within an enterprise and utilize the corresponding processes that will enable an organization to begin managing their resources in an effective, standardized manner. Along the way, the methods defined herein will also enable you to begin to help your organization lay the foundation work needed for beginning an ISO 900X certification.


Reasons for Using Program Management.
There are several very good reasons for starting a corporate implementation of a PMO. Foremost among these reasons is effective cost management. Using a proven framework of well defined, industry-proven processes enable a business leader to leverage knowledge gained from other business leaders who have been in similar situations. The processes and procedures used in Program Management are, by design, risk mitigators and cost-savers. They are viewed as "best-practices" that have been implemented and refined over time and tested in many organizations. Standardization of such processes will allow a project team to plan and execute a project in a manner that avoids any major surprises to upper management in an organizational status review meeting. Processes that are designed with such built-in procedures as audit and status reporting will also allow cross-functional teams in an organization to communicate issues more effectively.


Preparing an Organization for Program Management.
Once you, as the business leader, have made the decision to try and establish formal program management in your organization, there are some preparations to be made. You will need to write some internal communications that begin to talk about the new Program Management Office (PMO). You will need to explain to your user community how the PMO will assist all of the Program Managers in executing internal projects using the new procedures. Part of this communication should introduce the concepts of a corporate Systems Engineering Process (SEP), formalized project initiation, and project sponsorship.

Another important point you will need to communicate in your message to the organization is process standardization. You can explain the advantages of having well-defined, "best-practice" processes as they relate to cost-savings in implementation of your internal projects. You can also describe the added benefits such as a lower cost of training, faster ramp-up time for projects, better communication across the organization, better budget controls, etc.

Finally, you may want to prepare the organization for an ISO certification. In your communications, you can explain how ISO requires an organization to begin to "say, do, prove, and improve" on their internal processes. Program Management helps to enable an organization for ISO pre-certification by implementation of a set of standardized processes. While Program Management may not provide everything needed in your organization to become fully ISO 9002 certified, it will certainly go a long way towards helping to achieve that goal.

Project Initiation.
Projects usually begin when a user, most often someone in the project sponsor's organization, submits a written request for something to be done. This is accomplished using a Project Initiation Form (PIF). The user will complete the PIF and submit it to the PMO. The PMO will process the request, performing such tasks as logging the request, reviewing it against outstanding corporate goals, etc., and contact the project sponsor to set up a meeting to review the request.

Project Sponsorship.
Basically, a sponsor is someone having the authority and budget to authorize funds against the costs of doing project work. Lets face facts - if there is no one willing to pay for doing a project, it just doesn't get done! Project sponsors take on such responsibility by formally signing a letter of sponsorship, known as the Sponsor Formalization Letter (SFL). The PMO will prepare the SFL and obtain both written commitment of funding (at this point, funding only to investigate, not for the entire project) and approval to proceed on the project from the sponsor.


Tools Needed to Create a PMO.
The CD-ROM available with this book has all the documents, files, templates, databases, spreadsheets, presentations, and .html files needed for you to quickly implement a minimal working, entirely functional Intranet-driven PMO in your enterprise. Everything described in this book is available on the CD-ROM. Instructions for installing the example Intranet-driven PMO are found in Appendix M of this book. All of the necessary files and documents on the Intranet are linked and cross-referenced to the corresponding documents needed for each phase of the SEP. Figure 1 depicts the PMO Intranet Start Page.