Finding project management the right home

Where does project management sit in your organisation? In an all-seeing, directive project management office? A branch of the IT department dedicated to ‘change’? Perhaps you’re embedded within operational units, jumping into project work alongside business-as-usual teams.

Or perhaps it’s a moving target. In common with many other corporate functions, project management can find itself being assigned and reassigned according to current corporate wisdom.

Louisa Pavis, director of HSBC Global Banking and Markets, says it’s time to think more consciously about the effect this shifting approach has on organisations, the project profession and project managers’ careers.

“A lot of people will recognise the cycle that can affect the whole project management function,” she says. “You start with centralised capabilities to deliver projects and programmes. Then, 18 months later, it’s perceived that a lot of cost has built up in one function; it’s looking quite big. So, the decision is taken to federate roles and positions into the business areas they’re serving.

“Then, after 18 months, you’re seeing increasing amounts of change happening – and concern starts to build that this project work does not feel as controlled or accessible as it used to when managed by a specialist function. Connections to IT counterparts are degrading, there is fading use of consistent standards and strategic alignment with desired business outcomes is weakening – change has gone native. So, the logical choice is to take the people working on projects and move them into IT.”

The last part of the cycle? “You realise large investment is being made to deliver technology solutions, and this has become an overriding context for project managers,” Pavis explains. “Products are being delivered on time, on budget and to quality, but the end users are not using what has been delivered and benefits are not being realised. You need to refocus on the ‘why’ of projects. So you assert control by centralising the change capability to realign with wider strategic objectives. And we’re back to the start.”

Project management on the move

“That cycle is familiar, and you see it in all sectors and in all sizes of business,” says project management trainer Graham Kerr, a senior consultant at Hemsley Fraser Group. Kerr is clear that consistency is a big issue.

“The principle functions of a PMO [project management office] are to plan, set up, monitor and report on projects,” he explains. “Without some kind of structure to deliver those elements, you run into problems. It’s all very well sending project managers on courses, but you need a consistent terminology within your own business; you need to have an agreed approach to risk, process and methodology.”

A shared tribe identity and language

If project functions are being routinely reassigned, problems can arise. “A standardised data dictionary is key, because it’s all about being able to have quick and transparent conversations, where the outcome is clear decisions about investment in projects,” Pavis argues.

Sarah Coleman, director at Business Evolution, explains that: “If programme and project management is central to the delivery of the organisation’s mission, it’s more likely to have a focus, a structured home. But where representation of delivery capability outside business as usual isn’t prominent, that’s when project management gets moved around.”

Most people have a basic understanding of the benefits a project manager might bring to the business. “People know it’s a time-bound role, for example,” says Pavis. “But in a less mature environment, imposing a framework that standardises understanding of a whole range of inputs, processes and outputs would be advantageous.”

She isn’t suggesting the whole world should apply one project rulebook. “I’ve never worked anywhere where they take the strict template for PRINCE2 or agile without tweaking it,” says Pavis. “Within any enterprise, the language and application of these methods morphs into what’s acceptable for your tribe.”

An IT function might want to work up a different approach to agile, say, from a product development function. The point is, project managers must still be trusted by teams to deliver projects consistently. And having scores of different approaches to a methodology or ways to report on risk is bound to cause problems.

“Best practice suggests there must be clear lines of accountability for project managers,” Kerr says. “Most will recognise the problem of reporting to a line manager as well as someone in a project-specific role. Bigger projects might have a steering group, which can be useful in resolving conflicts between stakeholder interests. A single sponsor with clear guidance on how things should be communicated is key.”

Even in a relatively small organisation, senior decision-makers sometimes lack visibility on the performance. Reporting performance in a consistent way can help. “But that also means enforcing the use of the templates and project management software, for example, that the organisation has mandated – which is important if you’re going to allocate resources to projects and programmes properly,” Kerr adds.

Boosting PM’s status

The opportunity, then, is to build on APM’s work to achieve recognition for the profession through chartership and the Chartered Project Professional qualification.

Coleman hopes this status will focus leaders’ minds on the contribution of project management capabilities. “If you have major projects going on, you really need representation at board level,” she says. “It’s right that senior leaders focus on the business. But project management has to be seen as central to the mission.”

“APM rightly celebrates the outcomes of great project management,” Pavis acknowledges. “But frequently changing the location of the function within an organisation undermines that message. It can be really helpful to understand who’s ensuring those skills and disciplines are sustained and observed inside the workplace.

“If you subsume a change function into, say, IT, is the IT director going to do that? Or pay for project management-specific learning and development? Who’s responsible for their progression? Who oversees their professional standards?

“My fear is that, in 10 years, some organisations will see a decline in the role – where you no longer have project managers, you have ‘analysts’ or whatever individual business functions want to call the people who help ‘projects’ get over the line.”

Building career paths

Pavis is equally interested in how the shifting ownership of the function affects individual project managers. “They deserve clearer career paths,” she says. “An inherent understanding across industry as to what should be expected of a professional project manager is valuable – across all grades and disciplines. We should all know, just as we do with an accountant on their way to being a CFO, what the path for a project manager is.”

The accountant analogy is pertinent. Plenty of finance functions will assign accountants to a business function to act as a ‘finance business partner’. But, typically, they still report in to the CFO, whose job is to maintain standards and who shepherds them through finance-specific learning and development.

By putting the professional project manager at the heart of the debate, organisations see a functional benefit. For an organisation, the amount of cost and personnel is probably similar whether ‘change management’ sits under a PMO, is federated into business units or operates as a cadre in IT.

But for individual project managers, knowing that they are working to an agreed lexicon, and have the support of standardised methodologies and the sponsorship of leaders who will develop their project management careers, is hugely valuable – whether they’re changing projects internally or looking for a fresh role in a different environment.

“I would like to see many more directors and heads of project, programme and portfolio management,” says Coleman. “These are areas that are special, that do need a nuanced view and a voice.” It’s a journey that both HR and IT have been on as they have evolved and become more strategic – and cemented their capabilities within well-structured and well-resourced functions.

And at a time of rapid change, organisations that have a clearer understanding of their project management resources will see an upside that simply can’t be ignored.

Questions for structured project management

However your organisation’s project management functions are delivered – to whom project managers report, how their development is secured, what taxonomies and methodologies are used – there is a series of questions about structure that are useful to ask:

• Am I clear what skills, experiences and capabilities exist today in our project function?
• What do my internal customers say about which of those capabilities add most value to their business? Can they explain what ‘great project management’ looks like?
• Have I considered what I need to do to ensure I have the capabilities within my team to fulfil my customers’ needs tomorrow?
• How should I certify that project professionals in my organisation are fit to support my customers’ goals?
• How are my project professionals resourced?
• How do we guarantee to senior stakeholders that they have the information on project progress and certainty around future delivery that gives them greater confidence in decision-making?

Change for change’s sake?

“We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we would be reorganised. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganising, and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralisation.”

This quote – often misattributed to Roman courtier Petronius – is beloved of hard-pressed employees ‘suffering’ change management programmes. Why does it keep cropping up on staff bulletin boards, chain emails and a certain kind of LinkedIn feed?

The answer is in its likely provenance: the bulletin board of a British Army unit stationed in Germany after the Second World War. Disgruntled middle or junior ranks tired of opaque decision-making have always felt frustrated at reorganisations.

But is there a valid point in the joke? If your structured professional development in project management is curtailed because you’ve been assigned to an IT team or you’re suddenly reporting into a product manager who’s fallen in love with agile, perhaps there is.

“Changing how project management is organised often happens for entirely legitimate reasons,” stresses HSBC’s Louisa Pavis. “I’m not questioning why we move. I’m worried whether we and our organisations are conscious of the effects. And with methods like agile – which many managers will use to question the role of ‘project manager’ – that question is even more urgent.”

This is a reminder that communicating the rationale for reorganisation and offering a vision of future certainty are key to success in change projects.

 

Richard Young is consulting editor of Project