Decoding the Other DNA Elements

To continue to identify the elements of the DNA, the next question is, how do we bridge the two sides? Governance is the strand that links strategy and execution. It lays the boundaries and decision‐making mechanisms with a framework of policies, procedures, rules, guidelines, and oversight to steer and make sure there is alignment of actions on the execution side with the strategy to meet business goals and objectives. For example, you just completed a project phase and need to move on to the next; the governance mechanism is to follow the stage‐gate process to ensure that the project still aligns with the business case, ensuring a link to the business side. In the PMO, you want to implement a project portfolio management (PPM) tool to improve execution; the governance mechanism might be to have a sound business case that justifies the investment and shows how the tool will benefit and impact strategy.

Connect is the binding element to identify disconnects and connect people, processes, and products to projects, programs, and portfolios across silos. You cannot accomplish much without the right relationships and connections. Connect aims to link stakeholders, silos, business priorities, and interfaces and interdependencies, by focusing on networks and connections, marketing communications, relationships, and community and collaboration. Connect detects systemic disconnects and bottlenecks, resolves communication and interface issues across organizational silos, and develops relationships and collaboration with stakeholders. Connect is the element that links the other strands of the DNA of strategy execution together. You can master the other strands, but success will hinge on whether the PMO has the right connections with the right parts of the organization, and knows how to communicate through them.

Measure is the feedback loop in the DNA that measures, collects, and provides relevant measurement information. Effective measure should provide feedback to learn and adjust performance in each area of the DNA. Measure aims to define and measure success. You can measure anything, but the challenge is to measure what matters; that drives the right behavior and performance. A strong measure strand should result in consolidated information and transparency with relevant reports, dashboards, and scorecards. It should provide measures of not just execution outputs but also strategy outcomes and, more importantly, focus on the leading measures that lead to the desired results before it is too late.

Change is the catalytic element in the DNA of strategy execution; it can either stimulate and drive action, or slow and stall your project or PMO. You can excel in all the other elements of the DNA, which provide the structure, process, and capabilities for strategy execution, but without change, you are jeopardizing adoption and intended outcomes of your initiative. Projects, programs, and PMOs succeed or fail based on how they understand, manage, lead, leverage, adapt, and adopt change from multiple perspectives—organizational as well as personal (psychological, emotional, neurological, and behavioral) change. Develop change intelligence by learning and adapting as you focus on change awareness, anticipation, absorption, and adoption of what you are trying to accomplish.

Learn must be ingrained into the DNA to learn, evolve, and mutate instead of a downward spiral of repeating the same mistakes over and over, without any improvement. All the other elements can be healthy and perform well, but learning provides an edge to evolve. A strong learn strand will help to harness the lessons learned; learn from failure; apply the lessons to make failure survivable, and continuously improve and innovate in each element of the DNA.

Context and customer‐focus is the operating environment in which the DNA thrives. It is the nature of the business, purpose, vision and goals, the organizational structure, culture, and politics that determines how the DNA elements adapt and thrive, or are constrained and struggle. Context is like the operating system that provides the backdrop for strategy execution, and projects and PMO leaders must be mindful of their context and adapt and adjust their approach based on the business, culture, politics, and organizational dynamics. While you are doing all this, you must keep in mind that the DNA exists because of the customer, and customer experience and ultimately customer proliferation is the goal of the DNA.

The above elements have been identified over the past 15 years in our Next‐Generation PMO and Portfolio Management seminars and practice working with a few thousand people in many organizations around the world. The challenge was to decode the DNA or identify the core elements of a successful PMO, which could be scalable and applied to any type of organization or business (Figure 3.4).

What Is the Big Deal about the DNA of Strategy Execution?

Each of the seven elements of the DNA is not new in itself; what's new is linking them together and understanding the interplay and impact of all the elements on each other and the overall organization and business. These elements can be found individually or in a combination of two or more, but rarely are all the elements linked holistically in any management situation whether it is a project, program, PMO, or the overall organization.

As you analyze each of the scenarios at the beginning of the chapter, you will see an underlying pattern of the following cascading problems:

• Disconnects. The factory setting of contemporary organizations is biased toward breakdown and specialization. Although the intention is well‐meaning to make things more manageable, it creates vertical siloed processes and fragmented responsibility. There is an assumption that somebody is connecting the dots to link things horizontally, which does not always happen, resulting in disconnects and finger‐pointing—disconnects between strategy and execution, between stakeholders, between what management intends and what teams assume, between customer needs and expectations, and more. Disconnects occur between governance processes and strategy goals, between execution and change adoption, between measurement and its impact on each of the other DNA areas, and more.
• Lack of ownership. Disconnects result in lack of ownership. The strategy is not owned by the people who must implement it and vice versa. There is limited ownership, only for their own piece, and the end‐to‐end perspective is missing. There is no sense of overall skin‐in‐the‐game, causing a lack of ownership of outcomes and impact. If you are on a plane and you see some smoke, you are not going to think, I am sure somebody else is seeing it, and they will let somebody know. Let me just stay focused; I need to get to my destination on time. Of course, you don't behave like that. You are going to let somebody know immediately. You know your life is on the line and you are clear about the outcome, and you take ownership without even thinking. Survival is part of your DNA. Ironically, lack of ownership is pervasive in organizations.
• Lack of holistic perspective. There is a whirlwind of activity in each area, and individual silos are busy dealing with their issues and putting out their own fires. This creates a vicious downward cycle in which they are blinded by the limited view of their silo. The big picture perspective to zoom out and look at the “whole” is missing. There is a lack of systems perspective on how everything is connected to everything else and has a ripple effect. It is not surprising that many project managers and PMOs are tilted toward execution and delivery and are comfortable in that circle. They don't connect adequately to the other elements of the DNA and don't grasp the big picture business perspective and how the PMO can add value where it is needed. By looking at the whole, you can spot the disconnects and imbalance.
• Lack of agility. Disconnects compounded with lack of ownership, and holistic perspective make the organization slow and stodgy and unresponsive to the changing landscape. Layers of management in multiple silos creates bureaucracy, which hinders agility and flexibility. The organization is busy trying to stay afloat in the whirlwind of day‐to‐day issues and not prepared to deal with the DANCE and disruption and adapt and steer itself in a new direction.

PMOs typically get started with a particular focus to develop execution capabilities, to establish governance, or to provide reports. While the PMOs deal with these issues initially, they only provide limited value and cannot make a greater impact without a holistic approach. To address these issues, they need to look at the DNA.

Just like understanding of the DNA changed the approach to medicine, the DNA of strategy execution will change your approach to management. Decoding the DNA can provide vital information on how the system works and how the elements are replicated at every level, like the DNA in every cell. All the elements are part of on interdependent and integrated whole. Every element matters because it impacts others. Even if one of the elements is weak or missing, it impacts the health and proper functioning of the whole. A healthy DNA can adapt and evolve to changing conditions and is resilient and can bend without breaking. Just as each cell contains the DNA defining who we are, the DNA of strategy execution replicates at the project, program, portfolio, PMO, operational, and organizational level. Like the instructional manual for life, the DNA of strategy execution is subtle, elegant, and complex.

You may start with focusing on one area, but keep in mind the whole while working on the individual elements of the DNA is important. You may not be able to address or solve all the underlying issues but starting to see the whole goes a long way. For example, in Mary's case above, even though her mandate is to provide reports and dashboards and focus on measure, she needs to zoomout and make sure she measures what matters from both sides, execution, and delivery, as well as strategy metrics. She needs to make sure there are appropriate governance processes for measurement. She needs to connect, collaborate, and build relationships with the right stakeholders and engage them with appropriate marcom strategies as she connects the dependencies across different areas. Mary has to learn and adapt as she practices change management in the current context of her environment while making sure her efforts are ultimately customer‐focused.

Imagine you could encode these elements into the DNA of your organization at every level. Of course, it is not going to be easy. One of the successful entrepreneurs, Danny Meyers, has cultivated a culture that is embedded with the mantra of “ABCD—always be connecting dots,” in his successful top‐rated restaurants, which serve over 100,000 customers daily. Everyone from the greeters to the servers is trained in ABCD, and everyone owns the customer experience and outcomes. The DNA elements by nature help you to connect the dots across the board and embed ownership at every level. Instead of a downward spiral, the DNA creates a learning loop of adaptation as the DNA strengthens with experimentation and iteration. Imagine, every project/program manager, PMO, or executive linking, balancing, and optimizing to each of the DNA elements as they address any particular issue. It is OK to have separate teams working on their individual element; the challenge is to train them to connect to other areas and embed shared responsibility for ownership of business outcomes.

A PMO in a banking environment shared an example of how, as they applied the DNA framework, one of the teams involved in an ATM upgrade project asked a question about how this was a temporary fix and would be unnecessary based on what they were working on for the next release. This saved $22 million for the bank. Previously, they would have followed what they were told to do and would have completed the upgrade, assuming somebody else was worried about why we need to do this, without asking any questions.

Developing DNA Intelligence

Another aspect we are going to look at is how to improve, mature, and develop intelligence in each of the DNA areas. Table 3.1 lays out the foundational questions that will also be explored in subsequent chapters.

As the DNA has evolved over the past 10 years and we practice and apply it in many organizations, a common observation is that this is the DNA of management. You can use the questions in Table 3.1 to apply the DNA at the organizational, PMO, project, program, or portfolio level. You can also apply the DNA to classic management functions like finance, marketing, human resources, and so on. For each of the areas, start with the questions from each of the seven DNA areas and diagnose the strengths, weaknesses, and pain points. Think about it—for anything you are doing, you have to know what you are doing and how to get it done (execution); you have to know why you are doing it and make sure you are making the right choices (strategy); you need a sound governance process and methods, you need to monitor and track with measurement, you need to learn from your failures, as well as successes, and connect with the right stakeholders and customers, and you need to adapt and adjust to appropriate change and adoption. DNA is foundational and methodology agnostic whether it is traditional or agile. By nature, it is designed for agility, adaptation, and mutation depending on the evolving context.

Diagnosing the Pain

One of the questions that I love to ask is, why do you need a PMO?

One of the common questions that people not familiar with PMOs may pose is, why do we need a PMO?

I am not surprised to hear “standardization,” “consistency,” “improved capabilities,” “better alignment,” “return on investment,” and so on. The problem with these responses is that they all sound like vitamins—they are too generic and nice to have clichés that could be true for almost any initiative. Executives and stakeholders have heard them before and are not compelled to prompt action. Before vitamins, what they want is painkillers. It is important to understand this distinction, as we see this mistake repeated over and over, where PMOs are selling vitamins instead of addressing the pain. Like a good doctor, you must diagnose before you prescribe; otherwise, it is malpractice.

You can start by identifying the symptoms of organizational pain. Do we have too many projects and too few completed? Are “flavor of the month” initiatives becoming a steady diet? Are our best performers demotivated? Is it impossible to track key project? Is too much focus on next‐generation products forcing daily operations out of control? Or highlight the cycle of organizational firefighting. There isn't enough time to solve all the problems; solutions are incomplete; problems recur and cascade; urgency supersedes importance; many problems become crises; performance drops.

Start by assessing the PMO from the perspective of each of the seven DNA elements and evaluate your strengths, weaknesses, and missing links. The current point of pain and business needs of the organization will determine the priority of focus.

Focus on one or two issues; research and analyze them and get specific data to highlight the pain and build a convincing story. The key is to diagnose correctly and pick the pain that impacts the business and the ones that executives and stakeholders care about. Identify which element of the DNA is the source of the pain and how it connects and overlaps with the other areas of the DNA.

Melissa was hired as a senior project manager to bring about some order to the crazy world of projects in a gaming company in Las Vegas. For the past 18 months, she has made some progress but thinks that to make an impact they need a PMO with a supporting PPM tool. She has pitched the idea promising standardization and consistency, but she is not getting much traction; management wants her to focus and get the projects in control. As she learned and applied the DNA of strategy execution to the PMO, she changed her approach to first diagnose the pain from a business and organizational standpoint. The revenue recognition for this gaming company was directly tied to how many systems installs they completed. Melissa did the research and created a road map of all systems installs based on estimated recognition for one to three quarters (strategy/business element). She specifically highlighted how this pain was directly impacting revenue in the next three quarters in the stream of $28 million. Next, she highlighted how currently there is no good way to tell if we have enough resources to do the work we are scheduled to complete in the time frame we are being asked to complete from the execution side. She demonstrated how a PMO tool with a built‐in governance mechanism would provide visibility to resources and capacity planning. We currently have no good way to tell if the amount of money the company charges for work is too much or too little, as we have no way to measure cost/time. She showed them how the right metrics could be used to provide feedback for adjusting sales pricing decisions. She did this by connecting and building relationships one‐on‐one with the key stakeholders, identifying their specific pains and then linking it to the overall business and organizational issues. The key was to research, analyze, quantify, and be specific regarding the business issues and link it to their specific pain. Also, the linkage of all elements of the DNA is crucial.

Stakeholder Empathy Map

Besides the organizational pain, you also should identify the key stakeholders and customers and identify their pain. The stakeholder empathy map (SEM) is a powerful tool developed by visual thinking company, Xplane, that can be used to gain deeper insights into your stakeholder's perspective. SEM helps you to step into the shoes of your stakeholders, users, and customers. It helps you to uncover pain as well as potential gains from the PMO and meet unmet needs as you design the PMO from your stakeholder's perspective. Here are samples of empathy maps from some of the key stakeholders of the PMO: project managers (Figure 3.6) and executives (Figure 3.7). Similarly, you can create maps for the PMO, functional managers, and other key stakeholders.

The SEM can be used in different ways. The PMO can do the empathy mapping exercise itself based on their observations and assumptions. Depending on their relationship with the stakeholders, they can validate it later with the stakeholders, or they could do it together with them.

Identifying the Customer?

A powerful exercise to conduct with the PMO team is to ask the question, who is our customer? Is it the team we are handing over the deliverable to? Is it the sponsor? Is it our executives? Is it the end users? Is it the end customer of the business who buys our product or service?

I have facilitated this exercise in many organizations, and the typical responses are executives, scrum teams, team leads, functional managers, project managers, product owners, marketing/sales, and end users. They often forget the most important stakeholder. Only after prodding them and asking if they were missing any other important stakeholders does the light bulb go on and they identify the end “customer.”

One of the themes of this book is that the customer is at the center of everything and customer focus and customer success should be the priority for project managers and PMOs. Ultimately, project managers and the PMO should focus on how the customer can succeed with the deliverable or service of the projects and programs. As you are working on any aspect of the DNA, always think about customer‐experience or customer‐success, which will lead to not only project/program or PMO success but overall strategy‐execution success.

Defining Your PMO

According to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBoK) Guide, 6th edition (2017), a project management office (PMO) is

an organizational structure that standardizes the project‐related governance processes and facilitates the sharing of resources, methodologies, tools, and techniques. The responsibilities of a PMO can range from providing project management support functions to the direct management of one or more projects.

A PMO is an organizational office to organize, facilitate, and enable the effective management, execution, and results of projects, programs, or portfolio of projects. As a PMO evolves, it can become an organizational approach to organize, facilitate, and enable the effective implementation of organizational project management (OPM)—the systematic management of projects, programs, and portfolios in alignment with the achievement of strategic goals.

Besides organizational PMOs, there are also project or program offices responsible for the business and technical management of a specific contract or project/program. Often, strategic initiatives or large enterprise programs like a transformation program or global rollout of a system will have a program office, also known as a PMO.

The PMI Program Management Standard, 4th edition (2017), defines a program management office as

a management structure that standardizes the program‐related governance processes and facilitates the sharing of resources, methodologies, tools, and techniques. A program management office often also supports training and facilitates the sharing of resources, services, methodologies, tools, and techniques. Program management offices may be established within an individual program to provide support specific to that program, and/or independent of an individual program to provide support to one or more of an organization's programs office is an important element of the program's infrastructure and an aid to the program manager. It may support the program manager with the management of multiple projects.

You must work with your stakeholders and design your own approach in how you define the purpose, role, and functions of your PMO. The specific form, function, and structure of a PMO for your organization will depend on factors, such as:

• Your current context
• Your pain points, challenges, and needs
• The size and type of your organization
• The nature and scope of projects
• Your organization's project management maturity

Developing a Mission/Purpose for Your PMO

Remember John from the beginning of the chapter who was leading the PMO in an energy company? One of the questions I asked John was, do you have a mission or purpose for the PMO? He proudly sent me a link to their PMO website and their mission:

We add value by:

• Creation and support of the key project management processes and tools
  • Cost, Schedule, Change, Gating and Risk Controls
  • Clarity on “must‐be‐achieved” policies and principles
  • Subject Matter Experts to advise on unique project challenges
• Assisting with initial project setup, control staff training, definition of standard reporting
• Conducting process health checks to ensure achievement of mandated controls
• Assist projects with hiring roles, competency, and Rolodex of controls staff

As you review this mission, what comes to mind? Too many words … primarily focused on execution and governance issues… top‐down controlling language—“must‐be‐achieved policies,” “mandated controls,”…uninspiring and unengaging… inside‐out project management and PMO perspective, rather than outside‐in, the business perspective, and what the customer needs.

We worked with their PMO team and facilitated a workshop. As they became familiar with the DNA, light bulbs started to go on, and they realized that they had to reinvent their mission and clarify their purpose to apply the missing elements of the DNA. After a lot of questioning, reflection, discussion, and validating assumptions, they came up with the following reinvented mission:

PMO will enable a collaborative approach to delivering projects that add business value in support of our growth strategy, by promoting the “(Company) Way” of executing projects through:

• Consistency
• Flexibility
• Simplicity

The PMO will provide and support the following value‐added functions/services:

1. Project Management processes, tools, and training (Cost, Schedule, Change, Gating, and Risk Controls)
2. Identify opportunities for delivering business value
3. Enable project performance and reporting
4. Foster (champion) cross‐project communication, relationships, and knowledge transfer
5. Project resource capacity planning and coordination

They found a way to apply the DNA, think holistically, and link aspects of strategy and business, change, learn, and connect that were missing from the PMO. The idea is not that the above mission is perfect and you can cut and paste to transform your PMO. It was just right for this organization at this time. For you, it may be different based on your current context and pain points.

Another PMO that was getting started in the media business applied the DNA and came up with this mission.

Provide simple yet effective project execution and resource management support for strategic decision making to deliver quality, customer value, and enable business success.

After they had this mission for about a year, they were still struggling to get traction with the PMO. They realized that this mission was still driving project execution and resource management support even though it had all the right words. To reinvent themselves, they simplified the mission:

Facilitate, enable, and connect strategic execution of project portfolio for effective decision making, customer experience, and business success.

This exercise was one of the key drivers that transformed the perception of the purpose and expectations of the PMO both from an internal PMO perspective, as well stakeholder and customer expectations.

Another PMO in a global retail business had been struggling to make a mark and demonstrate their relevancy and value. They conducted an exercise to identify organizational pain points and see how the PMO could do better. Recurring themes were: too much work, too much process, too complicated, lack of connection, lack of priorities, and too many dependencies.

After a PMO facilitation exercise, they came up with a short and elegant statement, “Simplify and connect to drive results.”This transformed their approach and perception, and after five months the PMO was elevated to the enterprise level and became a go‐to organization for driving strategy execution.

PMO Frameworks

The Project Management Institute's (PMI) PMBoK Guide defines three types of PMO:

1. Supportive PMO. “Low control,” providing support and coaching to project managers and project teams with tools, templates, information, technical support, and training.
2. Controlling PMO. “Moderate control,” governance focus by implementing standard methods and processes and monitoring compliance.
3. Directive PMO. “High control,” direct responsibility for managing projects/programs and direct accountability for their success.

Gartner Group, the IT advisory service, outlines four types of PMOs:

1. Activist PMO—taking an activist and enabling, not controlling, approach.
2. Delivery PMO—focusing on delivery and execution.
3. Compliance PMO—emphasis on governance and compliance.
4. Centralized PMO—centralized standardization, coordination, and tracking at an enterprise level.

PMOs can be implemented in a combination of various roles, personas, and functions depending on the organizational context, structure, politics, culture, leadership, and PM focus and understanding.

Table 3.2 lists the type of PMO or model, the role, persona, function, and the primary DNA element focus incorporating a variety of models we have encountered based on our experience.

What Type of PMO Approach Is Right for You?

As we discussed earlier, your PMO approach will depend on your organizational context, structure, politics, culture, leadership, PM focus, and the understanding and intention of who is involved and sponsors the PMO. At a broad level, these aspects steer the PMO to adopt one of three approaches—a service, controlling, or partner mentality. Also, whom the PMO reports to will define its function and mentality. If it is sponsored by finance, typically the PMO focus will be on measure (emphasis on reporting, cost, budget); if it is departmental or functional, the focus will be on execution and delivery. At the enterprise level, it is more strategic.

Start with one area that is a pain point or organizational priority, focus on it, and show results. These results can be leveraged to connect and expand influence to other areas of the DNA. Initially, don't tread openly where you don't belong. You don't have to show the DNA model and talk about it. It may intimidate some stakeholders. The secret is that as you focus on one pain area, you are finding ways to connect and add value to the other areas of the DNA.

PMOs exist at different levels within the organization, and one organization can have multiple types of PMOs. Table 3.3 lists types of PMOs at different levels, based on a survey of organizations in PMI's Pulse of the Profession report on PMOs.

The specific form, structure, and staffing of the PMO will vary depending on the function, level, and reporting relationship. Centralized PMOs, where project managers report into the PMO, versus decentralized PMOs, where project managers report to functional areas, are approximately divided 46 percent to 54 percent according to the Projectize Group ongoing survey since 2008. Both have their pros and cons. If the PMO is a directive PMO responsible for the success of the projects, centralized PMOs can give more clout to the PMO. If the PMO is a support‐oriented PMO, it does not matter as much.

Strategy Execution Office

As we have discussed in this chapter, there is no one best approach to the type of PMO you can implement. Your approach will depend on your context. Regardless of what you call it or how you start, your goal should be to connect and link the different aspects of the DNA. If you are successful in bridging the gap between strategy and execution and linking the seven elements of the DNA, you will evolve toward a true strategy‐execution office (SEO). The SEO is a holistic and hybrid approach, constantly adjusting with the aim toward balanced strategy execution and results.

It would be ideal to have a strategy‐execution office that connects all the elements holistically, with a balanced and aligned portfolio, but that would be more like organizational nirvana. You can take different paths and combinations of roles, personas, and functions to evolve toward a type of SEO, regardless of what you call it. You can get carried away with the name or what you call the PMO. The name or even the word office can scare people and have negative connotations. What's more important is how you apply the DNA and practice the idea of holistic strategy execution with or without the name.