Cases in Applied Project Management
Individual Assignment
Identify the main purpose and mission of a PMO and what are the main challenges and obstacles in implementing a PMO? (HBS: The AtekPC Project Management Office)
Submitted by: KMO Greene
Introduction
The AtekPC Company found in 1984 has grown in size and scope to become a mid-sized technology PC manufacturer. The company now boasts 2100 fulltime employees with an additional 200 part time workers and revenues of $1.9 billion. AtekPC finds itself, like all other PC manufacturers facing a changing industry, one that is transitioning from a growth market industry to a maturing market industry and like all competitors in the marketplace, AtekPC is experiencing tremendous
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Without constraints, Nelson would employ a team of people consisting of project analysts, as well as managers very rapidly. He was more concerned in the group’s productivity and outcomes than in how the group might be perceived or affects organizational culture at AtekPC.
The issue of implementing a PMO and the obstacles associated with implementing the PMO at AtekPC is not unique to AtekPC. Most organizations that are implementing a new PMO do so as a result of changing times, changing market forces or changing personnel and culture. AtekPC finds itself having to deal with changing market forces as the PC industry moved away from a growth market industry to a mature market industry. Cost pressures increase tremendously on mature markets since areas for growth are no longer viable. Managers must effectively manage processes and supply chain to maximize profits in a mature market industry. PMO offers centralized efforts that are dedicated to improving the practice and results of the organizations project management.
The challenges for implementing the PMO at AtekPC are roughly the same most companies have had to overcome in implementing PMOs. Some of AtekPC’s challenges are as follows:
Lack of recognition of value of PMO to the organization and evaluating the effectiveness of the PMO within the organization – Because many mature organization view PMO as just another reporting mechanism for senior management, it
In order for an organization to remain successful, it must be able to fulfill its day-to-day operations without mistakes. If these demands cannot be met, a new project must be created in order to stay in business and ahead of the competition. If an organization has a problem, they can benefit from fixing it by following a formal process for identifying, selecting, initiating, and planning projects (Valacich, 2009).
Project Management Institute. (2000). _A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (4th ed.)._
To understand which services were most important to the AT&T Project Management Community, the PMCOE distributed both company-wide and business unit surveys to identify problem areas (e.g. leadership support, adequate training, etc.) and determine what needs its audience had which could potentially be met by the center. Initial discussions and survey findings helped to tailor the PMCOE offerings to provide the best payback of investment for both the PM Community and PMCOE efforts.
3) Is it acceptable for the PMO to report to the chief information officer or to someone else?
In today’s competitive economic climate, most project managers and organizational leadership has concluded the importance of the positive impact that project management leadership has contributed to the organization and on their projects and programs. This positive impact has caused most organizations to implement Project Support Offices (PSO). Within the Project Support Offices (PSO) there will be an understanding of the importance of the as-is and the to-be process is to managing projects and programs. The Project Support Office (PSO) uses this very effective technique in transforming vision into results. This technique is used to develop and populate an As-Is and To-Be diagrams. The As-Is diagram depicts the present state of the organizations, project or program process, culture, and capabilities. The To-Be diagram depicts the desired future state of how the organizations process, culture, and capabilities will look in the future. This case study reviews the goals confronted by the Pizza Delivered Quickly (PDQ) business while further developing the multiple related sub-systems to achieve the Pizza Delivery Quick (PDQ) requirements and be able to manage the project (Wysocki, 2012).
This business case outlines how the CPOE Project will address current business concerns, the benefits of the project, and recommendations and justification of the project. The business case also discusses detailed project goals, performance measures, assumptions, and constraints.
AtekPC is a mid-sized U.S PC maker with sales of $ 1.9 billion and employed 2100 full time employees and additional 200 part time workers. This case discusses most of the obstacles to establishing a PMO (Project management Office) are beyond the CIO and PMO Manager's control. We see a lot of problems faced by the CIO in implementing a PMO in the enterprise. Regardless of the technical challenges during the implementation, the core of the problems seems to be that the PMO is lacking organization support, from the top to the bottom. There is not enough executive stakeholder support, there is no visibility of the program, there is a conflict of interests within departments
There are many factors that play into failures of implementing an IT project. As in the Case Study – Memorial Health System CPOE Implementation there were clearly barriers set in place that affected leadership and staff. The purpose of this paper is to examine CPOE implementation barriers within the Memorial Health System and to determine possible methods to overcoming these challenges.
The role of the project management office (PMO) has increased nowadays, as many organizations are implementing it. According to PMI (PMI 2011), organizations with a PMO report more projects coming in on time, on budget and meeting intended goals to those without a PMO.
As according to the AtekPC Project Management Office case, the purpose1 of a PMO is to fulfill the need for greater discipline in managing IT projects. Moreover, it establishes or enhances project management skills, process, and governance structures within an organization (Applegate Pg. 462). The director of Application Development, Richard Steinberg, described AtekPC’s PMO’s purpose as a “methodology” for managing projects with standardized practices. As stated within the case, the main purpose of the PMO is to provide standardization in managing projects of large, complex scales as well as gain improvements in planning and performance of initiatives (Applegate Pg. 465). The case generalizes
Limitations: o Shortage of PMO expert resources; o Staff consisted of: PMO director + 3 contract project managers. Project charter introduced “idea form” = used to prioritize projects. PMO responsibilities: o Establish, publish, and disseminate project practices, standards and tools; o Add Later – Portfolio Management & Archiving of projects for knowledge sharing.
Project Management Office (PMO) and Agile method are highly reputable terms in many organizations, especially in their IT projects. The PMO is a group of people or committee within an organization that is responsible to define and maintain standards and practices for traditional project management. The ultimate objective for the PMO is to gain the benefits that are derived from applying Project Management (PM) methods, practices and policies. Thus, the PMO over time will become the origin for documentation, guidance and metrics regarding to any practices that are involved in managing projects within the organization, as well as it will be the communication channel that
This report was compiled by a team of professional project managers and gives an objective insight to the project in full.
The lack of having a Project Management Office (PMO) within Multi Projects Inc. that can assist with policy
In this paper, the author will introduce a failure case of K-Mart 's IT modernization system project. In 2001, K-mart took $1.4 billion dollars into this project with the purpose of competing with its rival Walmart. The dream is beautiful, but the real work is cruel. After 18 months, the project was failed because of lacking of cash. What happened in the detailed for this project? $1.4 billion dollar is huge numbers, why it was still not enough to pay and distribute for this project? How did its project manager do in this project? What are the project problems? How can we learn from the failure of this case? The paper includes the case background introduction, the project development process, the problems in the project, analysis and