Why a PMO in Your Pocket is the Best Recipe for Success: How to Make Sure GBS Initiatives Succeed

Are shared services using the Project Management Officer (PMO) function optimally? Could a lack of use explain why many initiatives fall short or overshoot time frames?

To answer that question, Barbara Hodge sat down with Suzanne Haenen, PMO Director of the Global GBS-PMO Team at AkzoNobel, to understand how PMO skills mesh with a project owner’s plans to reach their objective.

Collaboration and focus, over silos

Suzanne emphasizes the need for collaboration between the project leader or sponsor, who, in the end, carries accountability – and the project manager.

“We bring this to life in our sponsor training, where we often compare it to a captain and a coach in sports. The coach is there for the vision, and the captain is on the field with the team, getting things done. We have to put in place some structure, some walls – and we call this cadence. 

"I think it's an important skill to have. If there is a dedicated project manager assigned to a project or program that makes a big difference, because their mission in life is to deliver this project successfully. It's not something else they do, on top of the 10 ... 20 ... 30 other priorities of an operational job.” 

How do PMOs support GPOs? 

Prioritizing transparency is key in a project management set up. Suzanne and her team played an important role in driving the GPO initiative at AkzoNobel through a GPO (global process owner) model acceleration program.

At first, the GPO initiative wasn’t progressing at the speed expected. Upon reflection with senior leadership, Suzanne and her team realized that the problem lay in the realm of governance. They pinpointed a lack of transparency. 

The coach is there for the vision, and the captain is on the field with the team, getting things done.

“So that's where we started to dig into understanding each other's priorities, and then to put together a central file with some governance around it. We also put some reporting mechanisms in place for people to present these priorities and keep them aligned," she explains.

"It was important to establish a way to offer each other simple feedback about clarity, shared priorities, or totally different agendas. In the end, it’s about resources. People need each other's resources to support them in their products, programs, initiatives, and process improvements. If you don't align on that, you can’t assume people will know what’s important or whether they will be there when you snap your finger! Everyone's busy. So please align! We set up a whole cadence and some fun conferences for people, with 'speed dating' to help them to get to know each other.” 

The critical importance of speaking with people to understand current struggles

A strong PMO begins by speaking with a lot of people, Suzanne says. “This starts with people. It starts with understanding their needs and their current struggles. If I am pulled into a project or program that's already running, I first try to understand where they are at. Do they have their basics in place? Did they go through the documenting of a product charter at the beginning, that I can look at? Is it still fair? We talk about a status update at that point in time. Are things progressing as we originally hoped they would, or are things going a bit off track, and maybe we need to make some changes? It's really important to speak with as many people as you can. Get to know them personally, as well, and really try to understand what their pain points are.” 

That's when acceleration can take place, with a PMO as catalyst. It's about smart planning and putting things in a logical sequence, with the team fully aligned, and everyone supporting the project.

Then comes the task of monitoring progress towards the end results.

Why Master Data Management is key

Data management has been at the top of leaders’ lists for the past two to three years. “If you want to change your processes, you start by looking at the data your processes manage, and that the processes can provide,” explains Susan. “The data, obviously, needs to be clean, because otherwise you're looking at incorrect numbers, which will give you the wrong message.”

Quite early on in the GPO model, Suzanne focussed on making Master Data Management a key enabling function. The right set up, proper maturity assessment, and ongoing improvements to support the quality and management of data are vitally important, she says.

If you like the audio medium, you’ll find the full conversation with valuable PMO insights from Suzanne and Barbara here.