Most project managers are keenly aware of the importance of communication management in the success of our projects. If perhaps not the most important, communication is certainly the ultimate discipline in project management; no communication, no project. However, there is one component of communication management that is given short shrift in project planning, and in project organizations in general; that is an established terminology. Communication only works efficiently when the speaker and receiver share a common understanding of terms being exchanged.

Consider the following terms – process and procedure.  As project managers we use these terms constantly, yet did you know they are not defined in the PMBOK®?  Frequently we define these terms in a serial fashion: a process is a collection of procedures which define the order and timing of tasks executed during a project. Nonetheless in everyday project communications these terms are frequently used interchangeably and some dictionaries considered them synonyms. This can present a problem or two.

The misuse of terminology in projects, or in any human activity for that matter, is an insidious time thief.  Whether we realize it or not, when we don’t employ standard terminology in our conversations every thought conveyed will be prefaced with a back and forth exchange regarding the meaning of the words before the receiver has understood the message. (Remember that “communication” can’t be said to have occurred unless the parties understand each other!)

Wouldn’t it be more expedient to establish a set of organizationally accepted terms prior to the initiation of the endeavor rather than establish terminology during each communication event?

The morale of the story is a simple one – prior to launching a project, ensure that you have a task in your communication planning to establish and publish a documented glossary of terms to be used in your undertaking. Better yet, press your internal project organization to issue a universal glossary that governs all projects. This also will save precious time during the execution of the project.

Note: It isn’t necessary to reinvent the wheel. There are several online project management glossaries (here’s one favorite) that, with perhaps the definitions of a few organization-specific terms added, can serve to get everyone literally on the same page.

Quick note: The application period for the seventh annual PMO of the Year Award is open, and the application materials can be downloaded here.

The application deadline is June 29, 2012. Questions? Email us at pmoaward@pmsolutions.com or join the PMO of the Year LinkedIn group.

We are casting a broad net with this award, with applications streaming in from around the globe; two of the recent finalists have been from Australia and New Zealand. So we’ve renovated the program to provide a global, virtual presentation ceremony this coming September. More details about that later …

If you did not see it, our The State of the PMO 2012 research report was released March 6. The summary report can be downloaded here.

Like any research study, The State of the PMO is designed around questions. Some of the questions we had in mind when we developed the survey included:

• Do companies have PMOs? For how long?
• What’s their service span?
• What functions are performed by PMOs?
• How large are PMO staffs? How experienced?
• Do PMOs provide training? If so, what types of training? And how much?
• What challenges face PMOs?
• What value does a PMO add?
• What are organizations’ priorities for the coming year?

The results answer some of these questions resoundingly. For example, we learned that PMOs continue to proliferate: with each study, a higher percentage of firms have one in place. New to this study, though, was a large pool of smaller businesses (revenues < $100 million) implementing PMOs.

We also saw that there are some pervasive challenges, particularly in the area of resource management, which has been and continues to be one of the top areas of difficulty for PMOs.

With a larger than ever pool of responses (over 500 PMO leaders participated) the findings carry significant weight. However, a large influx of smaller companies, with younger PMOs, may also have made the results harder to interpret. So, for the past week, I’ve been doing a little follow-up qualitative research, interviewing some of the participants in the survey by phone, delving a little deeper into the numbers. Here were some findings from those interviews that surprised me.

What downturn? Each of the dozen PMO leaders I interviewed said that their sponsoring organization was in good shape despite the economy. The general sense was of strong companies not only continuing to grow – primarily via merger and acquisitions – but poised for a major leap forward. Not only that, but none of the PMOs had experienced loss of staff or funding for economic reasons. Most of them, indeed, had added personnel. Which leads to the next finding …

What unemployment? The main issue facing my interviewees was the difficulty of finding experienced staff, not at the entry level, but at the senior PM, Program Manager, and senior business analyst level.

These two findings somewhat inform what we learned from the statistical side of the research, in that all but one of the interviewees came from very mature PMOs of several years’ standing – a quarter of them were in place for over 10 years. We had surmised that the large pool of newer, smaller PMOs somewhat affected the trending, and the interviews bear this out.

Read the research and have thoughts or questions about it? Please comment or email. We’re always happy to discuss the ins and outs of the numbers.

A few weeks ago we had fan mail – always exciting when that happens, but in this case it was more than usually rewarding, since our fan, Jim Liporace, PMP, has posted a review of our latest book, An Inside Look at High-Performing PMOs,on the Projects@Work site. I called him up to find out more about him, the challenges he faces in his work, and how he put our book to good use.

JC: Wow! Thanks for that great review of our book. Just curious how you came to pick it up.

JL: Well, I’ve known Kent for many years, so I’m on your mailing list. I was attracted by the idea that I’d find the stories of other PMOs that had achieved success.

JC: I understand you’ve been involved with PMOs at some pretty large companies.

JL: Yes, I previously was involved in PMOs at Motorola and GE. Presently, I’m with Cameron, a supplier of equipment and services to the oil and gas sector. It’s an exciting opportunity: we have project managers in Romania, Norway, Brazil and Singapore as well as Houston.

JC: Do you experience cultural issues in applying project management across these global projects?

JL: Some, of course, but mostly I find that project managers relate on the basis on project management pretty well across the line. It’s mostly a challenge of getting all the project managers on the same page in terms of methodology and practices. And with experienced people, that isn’t difficult if you just provide the structure. Anyone who has been in business for a while can tell you a horror story where something went wrong that could have been prevented by having those tools in place.

JC: Tell me one!

JL: Well, for example I remember a case where we had some machinery developed for a site in Europe – millions of dollars, parts shipped in from all over the world, a team assembled to get it on line and then they realized no one had ordered the bolts. One little whoops and thousands of dollars and the time of dozens of people, all wasted.  That’s why I constantly strive to express the value of the PMO, the value of the trained project manager. One mistake and you could pay his salary 10 times over. Project management is what allows us to look around corners, to stop firefighting. The unthinkable might happen – but if you’ve done your risk management, you probably will be able to recover from it more seamlessly.

JC: What’s your biggest challenge?

JL: The death of most PMOs is the lack of strong senior sponsorship. I  didn’t see this covered much in your book, but I guess one reason why the winning PMOs are so successful is that they have it. I have seen in the past that without this, no matter how good you are, it is a game of attrition to see who gives in first, you or senior management, and either the PMO succeeds of dies.  So if you do not have strong executive support, then get it, sell the benefits of the PMO and how it impacts the bottom line and how you are the best one to make this happen.  By the way, I bet no one ever told you that as the PMO leader you have to be even a better salesperson than those guys on the next floor! Trust me, you do.   I got lucky this time around, for in my current role this is not the case, as I have the full support of the President and all of the VPs.  So now that I have the top brass’ unyielding support, I need to make things happen quickly and this is where this book comes in real handy.

We are deep into the jungle of numbers here, with a record number of responses to our PMO research study (over 500), thanks to the participation of our media partner Gantthead. Call me a research nerd, but it’s always exciting to see patterns begin to emerge from the chaos. It’s early days yet – but here are a few of things we notice:

• Times are hard. Across the board, there’s a slight decline in the array of services offered by PMOs. Nevertheless, more and more companies continue to invest in a PMO – a new high of 87% of companies – including record numbers of small businesses.
• Staffs have remained about the same size (see, “times are hard” above). However, the PMO’s commitment to training remains strong and 84% of those who offer training, train in PM basics. And the use of contracted resources to fill the gap is up significantly
• The functions that PMOs have not cut back on are those that are directly tied to measuring performance and boosting productivity. Project audits are up and there’s a renewed focus on monitoring and controlling. In addition, more PMOs are developing performance metrics.
• PMOs report to higher levels in the organization, and with that visibility comes pressure to show results. PMOs’ top challenges are in defining the role of the PMO and demonstrating its value.

Stay tuned for the release of the full report, which is now in production. If you sign up for the PM Solutions newsletter, you’ll receive a link to the research summary as soon as it is posted online.