Posted by Jeannette Cabanis-Brewin in Benefits Realization, Culture & Change Management, Human Capital, Strategy Execution | 0 Comments

My top feel-good session at this year’s PMI Global Conference was a case study of the Mayo Clinic’s PMO at their Center for Regenerative Medicine. Not only is the visionary work of the CRM inspiring, but I was impressed by the PMO leader, Wale Elegbede, PMP. When he said, “Leadership… Read More »

Posted by Jeannette Cabanis-Brewin | 0 Comments

An article in The Economist caught my attention with the headline “Time to get in training: Companies must overcome skill shortages.”  The author notes that the amount American companies are spending on training jumped last year by almost a third, to the equivalent of $1000 for every staff member who received training. (See… Read More »

Posted by Jeannette Cabanis-Brewin | 0 Comments

I’ve left the most complex question for last. One of our webinar attendees queried:What is the best way to engage in a conversation about traditional PMO roles and activities in an organization that is using Agile delivery and methodologies?One of the problems with answering these questions after the webinar has ended… Read More »

Posted by Jeannette Cabanis-Brewin | 1 Comment

Mark your calendars for January 30 at 2 p.m. ET, when PM Solutions CEO J. Kent Crawford and President Bruce Miller will present some of the findings of our newest research study.Agility and Execution: What PM Processes Can Positively Impact Your Strategy Execution? takes a close look at the best practices revealed in the Strategy… Read More »

Posted by Jeannette Cabanis-Brewin | 0 Comments

Our founder and CEO Kent Crawford stays on the road a good deal, teaching classes for the PMI SeminarsWorld series, as well as visiting client sites and attending conferences and speaking engagements. In doing so, he keeps a front-line view of what is going on in organizations across a broad array of industries. So, once… Read More »

Posted by Jeannette Cabanis-Brewin | 0 Comments

Bruce Miller rejoined PM Solutions/PM College as our President in early November and jumped right into the fray by attending the PMO Symposium. We caught up with him by phone to ask him if there were any surprises there for someone who had stepped away from working in the project management consulting field for… Read More »

Posted by Johanna Mickel | 0 Comments

Now that I have time to catch my breath after the whirlwind of information that is the PMO Symposium, I wanted to skip back to Monday and share a few insights from a panel of C-Suite luminaries convened by PMI for the occasion:Bruce Rogers, Forbes Chief Insights Officer, noted that we are in an… Read More »

Posted by Johanna Mickel | 0 Comments

According to keynote speaker Rita McGrath, competitive advantage is an elusive, ever-moving target, what she termed in her speech "Transient Advantage."For organizational success, we need both strategy and innovation. In the past, the “Holy Grail” of strategy has been to create a sustainable competitive advantage. Often when companies reach the top, they… Read More »

Posted by Johanna Mickel | 1 Comment

We are excited to be attending the PMO Symposium again this year! If you can't be in attendence, here are some quick thoughts from the first day's schedule of events.The CEO of PMI, Mark Langley gave a keynote that defined the theme of the conference. According to Langley, Organizational Agility (“OA… Read More »

Posted by Jeannette Cabanis-Brewin | 1 Comment

Although we have not released the formal research report yet, and the numbers are still being crunched, there are a couple things I found in reading through the raw data collected by our Strategy Execution Process Benchmark that I couldn't wait to share.Like the majority of companies out there, those that participated in… Read More »

Posted by Jeannette Cabanis-Brewin | 0 Comments

In our May webinar/panel discussion of The State of the PMO 2016, we had a number of questions submitted by participants that there was not enough time to answer. I caught up with Kent Crawford by phone to get his responses to some of the questions that centered around PMO implementation and processes.Q: The… Read More »

Posted by Jeannette Cabanis-Brewin | 1 Comment

In our May webinar/panel discussion of The State of the PMO 2016, we had a number of questions submitted by participants that there was not enough time to answer. One of the major themes involved questions about agile tools and processes in the PMO. I called on one of our in-house Agile experts, Senior Consultant… Read More »

Posted by Victor L. Allen | 0 Comments

Editor's Note: We welcome back guest blogger Victor Allen with some words of wisdom, gained though experience, on the challenges faced by PMOs. This is the third in our "Expert Series": You can read previous posts in the series here and here. For more on PMO challenges and trends, please download our latest research… Read More »

Posted by Jeannette Cabanis-Brewin | 0 Comments

The State of the PMO 2016 research report, released last November, shows that the majority of organizations now either have PMOs or are planning to implement one in the coming year, the common functions and practices of PMOs are becoming a standard feature of organizations.But for those PMOs that have been in place for over… Read More »

Posted by Victor L. Allen | 1 Comment

Editor’s introduction: This week we inaugurate the first in our Expert Series, blogs by writers who have won our respect for their work “in the trenches” of project, program and organizational improvement. Today’s author, Victor Allen, is director of project management for Major Enterprise Projects at DTE Energy, the… Read More »

Posted by Jeannette Cabanis-Brewin in Culture & Change Management, Project & Program Management, Project Management Office (PMO), Project Management Research | 1 Comment

Although is is not a major theme in our biennial research study, The State of the PMO, there's one data point that I always keep a close eye on, and that is the use of outside contractors to manage the PMO or to manage specific projects and programs for the PMO. Over the years… Read More »

Posted by Jeannette Cabanis-Brewin in Project & Program Management, Performance Measurement, Project Management Maturity, Project Management Office (PMO), Project Management Research | 0 Comments

This week saw the release of the latest iteration of our biennial research study, The State of the PMO 2016. After nearly a decade of collecting information on PMO trends and functions, PM Solutions Research had a clear view of how the PMO is developing as an organizational entity. Not only that, but our unique formula… Read More »

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Reading the business press and networking with the diverse community of project management leaders at events like the PMO Symposium, one can't help but be struck by the changing dynamics of the workforce. In the developed nations, we have an aging workforce that possesses critical expertise and stories, tacit knowledge and insitutional memory that… Read More »

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This week I attended the PMO Symposium for the first time and it was one of those events where you experience so many new ideas that you can’t keep them to yourself. I’m relatively new to Twitter, but I found it to be the perfect tool to record “Aha!”… Read More »

Posted by J. Kent Crawford | 0 Comments

The annual PMO Symposium has kicked off and we could not have had a better starting gate than the presentation that expanded on PMI’s research into benefits realization. That this is the focus and the kickoff of the Symposium is so appropriate, because it ties right into what we believe to be the… Read More »

Posted by Jeannette Cabanis-Brewin | 0 Comments

Fun fact: Our newest research on The State of the PMO is coming out next week, and it provides a profile of what the best PMOs focus on. One of those items is benefits. We are not surprised, because a focus on benefits is one way that PMOs help their organizations achieve their strategic goals. … Read More »

Posted by Jeannette Cabanis-Brewin | 0 Comments

We just finished crunching the numbers for our 2016 update of our signature biennial research study, The State of the PMO. For those who have been following the progress of the PMO for the past several years, some of the findings are unsurprising: the percentage of companies with PMOs continues to climb (up 5% from 2014), while… Read More »

Posted by Jeannette Cabanis-Brewin in Project Management Office (PMO), Project Management Research, Site News, Strategy Execution | 0 Comments

Calling all PMO leaders, executives with responsibility for PMOs, and PMO contributors: now is your chance to participate in our signature biennial research study, The State of the PMO. Conducted every two years since 2008, this study has helped thousands of companies gauge and improve thier PMO processes and functions. This year's study, subtitled "Enabling… Read More »

Posted by Deborah Bigelow Crawford in Culture & Change Management, Project & Program Management, Governance, Performance Measurement, Project Management Research, Strategy Execution | 0 Comments

Companies are demanding to know the long-range benefits of building and implementing a project management culture. Simple financial measurements are not enough; a balanced family of measures is needed to get an overall picture of the health of your organization and its project management practices. A balanced family of measures can evolve into a powerful… Read More »

Posted by Jeannette Cabanis-Brewin in Performance Measurement, Portfolio Management, Project Failure & Recovery, Project Management Events, Project Management Office (PMO), Project Management Research, Strategy Execution | 0 Comments

Last week, our CEO Kent Crawford presented a webinar on strategies to recover troubled or failing projects to a large audience. The questions they submitted for the Q&A displayed just how much worry and stress failing projects create for project managers. We will be interviewing Kent on this blog, answering many of the… Read More »

Posted by in Project & Program Management, Portfolio Management, Project Management Events | 1 Comment

Project portfolio management was the theme of this year’s PMO Symposium. We outlined some of the key lessons learned here and there. In this post, we will look at the first three stages of how project portfolio processes are put into practice: assessment, improvement, and reporting/analysis.Project Portfolio AssessmentJust like any… Read More »

Posted by Jeannette Cabanis-Brewin in Project Management Office (PMO), Strategy Execution | 0 Comments

Symcor is one of those back-office businesses that you never think about, but upon which you rely every day. The millions of transactions that they process, from checks and ATM visits to statements and other documents, must happen seamlessly and to a standard of quality that can only be described as perfection. The next time… Read More »

Posted by Jeannette Cabanis-Brewin | 0 Comments

A week ago today, our CEO Kent Crawford joined PMI in congratulating the 2015 PMO of the Year Award winner, Navy Federal Credit Union, at the PMO Symposium in Phoenix. The finalists, Symcor and Ticketmaster, were also honored at the event. An in-depth description of the winner and finalists’ applications is available in ebook form… Read More »

Posted by J. Kent Crawford | 0 Comments

We’re here at the PMO Symposium in Phoenix, Arizona with PMO leaders from all over the world. It’s always exciting to be among “the best of the best” as the PMI Awards Program logo declares. And among PMOs, the best are definitely represented here.Chief among these, of course,… Read More »

Posted by Jeannette Cabanis-Brewin in Demand Management, Project Management Office (PMO), Project Management Research, Resource Optimization | 0 Comments

My first introduction to the concept of a “project office” came in 2000, when I covered a Project Management Benchmarking Forum in Scottsdale, AZ for the newsletter then being published by this organization (The Best Practices Report). The forums were the brainchild of a University of Phoenix professor, Frank Toney, who regularly gathered practitioners… Read More »