APM Presents... project management in practice, 17th March 2016

'APM Presents... project management in practice' took place this year in Coventry on Thursday 17 March 2016. Below are some of the outputs from the Specific Interest Groups that held short informal introduction sessions about their area of project management throughout the day.

Knowledge SIG - Knowledge Specific Interest Group - Knowledge Management in 30 minutes

People SIG - People Specific Interest Group - Mentoring, Coaching and Action Learning
This conversation was strongly influenced by 'Emerging Trends: Coaching in the Project Environment', which is attached below for reference, an APM publication created by this SIG committee in 2014.
 

PMO SIG - PMO Specific Interest Group - Evolving PMOs: understand the different types of PMOs and the need for targeted engagement with PMOs to succeed
On 17 March 2016 the APM Presents event was held at the Radcliffe Hotel in the environs of Warwick University (Coventry). 13  APM specific interest groups held 3 sessions each (either ½ or 1 hour in duration). The general consensus seemed to be, from a straw poll, that the event was a great success for both the attendees and the APM representatives.

With respect to the PMO SIG, some useful and enlightening PMO discussions took place over 3 one-hour sessions presented by Gary Mitchell and Simon George (PMOSIG Committee members).

Some 40 attendees to the three PMOSIG sessions were from a wide range of industries and were often representing their PMOs in a state of flux – either being proposed in their organisation, wanting to grow or in some cases in danger of being disbanded.

A few of the attendees had been in PMOs as their path into a PPM career and had recently moved on into being project managers. However no attendees were PMs and contemplating moving back into a PMO role even though they recognised that their new experience from ‘the other side of the fence’ could benefit their organisations’ PMO.

Also what became clear as the sessions and discussion progressed was that Data Analytics were the way forward for most PMOs, moving away from a ‘generalist’ PMO Officer role towards the PMO Analyst role which would require more of, and a wider range of, technical skills including more knowledge of specialist functions (Risk, Finances, Scheduling, etc.) in order to Diagnose; Proscribe and Monitor Remedial Action(s); Offer Prognosis.

There will always be a place for the different types of PMO (or even PSO when they are first starting up) but perhaps the future is towards being a much more rounded team of ‘experts’ who can really ‘Add Value’ and help projects succeed.

Simon George
PMO SIG committee member

Portfolio Management SIG - Portfolio Specific Interest Group - Introducing Portfolio Management

The full list of speaker biographies from this years APM Presents can be viewed here.