Is your organization caught in a tangle of projects and no one knows when they will end?

Do projects keep coming in and are they systematically taken on without anyone answering whether they can be executed?

Does it give the feeling that everyone is overwhelmed?

Have you tried setting up a PMO and the result is more work and bureaucracy for the teams without showing much better results?

Do you know the real impact of your projects?

What is Agile PMO?

Traditionally, as companies have grown, they have had to address the problem of scalability. The larger the size, the greater the number of parallel projects, which makes the context even more complex.

Many companies solve this problem with two solutions that go hand in hand:

• The division of the company into departments by area of specialization, each responsible for promoting and leading projects related to its area of expertise.
• The creation of a Project Management Office (PMO), defined as a management structure that standardizes the processes related to the governance of an organization’s projects.

This PMO office traditionally focuses on monitoring the execution of projects (scope, time and cost) by the various departments, delegating budgeting and prioritization tasks to the latter. To reduce complexity, the company carries out an annual budgeting exercise, charging each of the departments with annual planning and budgeting, which they will follow periodically.

This model is “easy” to implement, you only have to plan once a year, reducing budgeting hell, and it is delegated to the areas that will carry it out, so you only have to control that the planning is fulfilled. On the other hand, however, it has clear disadvantages:

• It does not respond to an overall company objective, but to different departmental objectives, which may not be aligned with each other, giving rise to conflicting priorities. Without common goals, collaboration is neglected.
• It focuses on project execution, leaving aside return on investment (ROI).
• Many of the projects do not add real value, and are simply executed because they were in the annual planning.
• It is very complicated to visualize the value stream and optimize it.

And once you get control over the projects… will you know if you are generating enough impact with them? If you are able to find out… how much flexibility does the organization have within the budgets set for the current year?

To an approach focused on project execution, an Agile PMO responds by linking this execution to the company’s strategy and market evolution. And how does he do it?

• The annual planning model eliminates flexibility; the Agile PMO approach seeks more periodic planning, based on test, measure and adapt.
• Prioritization by department is replaced by a centralized prioritization, aligned with the strategy, which allows for a dynamic distribution of the budget and promotes cross-cutting initiatives or projects.
• The focus is on the impact generated and the flexibility to adapt, and not on executing the plan without deviations as a metric of project success.
• Visualization of the workflow, making the status of projects transparent in real time, allowing important decisions to be made in real time and without investing too much time in gathering information.
• Apart from the PMO’s role of bringing order to the various projects, and thus having a clear view of what is going on, an Agile PMO also supports the execution of the strategy, helping the various teams with the challenges they face in bringing it to fruition.

The Synergy between PMO and Agile Methodologies

Are PMO and agile methodologies opposing concepts? Used to traditional PMOs, it might seem so. Control over processes, static planning, siloed information, focus on delivery… But make no mistake, this is just one of the approaches you can provide your PMO with, and a common mistake is to think that the PMO is only useful to control projects.

In fact, PMO and agile methodologies complement each other perfectly. Combining both concepts makes it possible to define project governance within an organization, to establish a certain order to understand what is happening and how it is having an impact, and to provide it with an adaptive and collaborative approach without losing the global vision.

A PMO with an agile approach changes the concept of control to that of a body that supports the management and progress of the organization’s global strategy through its projects. It is not about controlling everything in detail, but about being present in the ideation and prioritization process, supporting teams in achieving objectives, facilitating communication and collaboration, and measuring impact and iterating. This will provide the organization with a powerful mechanism to help it chart the course, make intelligent decisions, and adapt to the market at any time.

The benefits of approaching the PMO with an agile approach are:

• Flexible and adaptive project governance: Defines an overall project strategy, while keeping in mind the need to adjust to changing market and customer needs.
• More effective project management: Communication and teamwork flow better, with a focus on delivering value to the client on an ongoing basis.
• Greater project success: Global prioritization, planning in short intervals, collaborative work, and above all measuring impact, key success factors.
• Space for innovation: Teams have more autonomy and agency, driving creativity and learning. It promotes transversal initiatives that make use of all the company’s knowledge.

Governance in the Agile PMO

Since the importance of an Agile PMO is to link the strategy with the progress of the projects carried out by the teams, governance applies at three levels, having a different role according to the focus of each level. In addition

Strategic Level: Facilitate the alignment of projects with the strategy, establish priorities and manage the project portfolio.

• Focus on transparency: Information on the strategy and project portfolio must be clear, accessible and up-to-date for all stakeholders.
• Visionary leadership: There must be a leader who inspires and motivates the organization towards agile transformation.

Program Level: Provide support to teams working on projects within the same program in program planning, execution and monitoring.

• Flexible planning: Need to provide mechanisms for adapting program planning to changing market and business needs.
• Effective communication: Communication between teams and stakeholders is fundamental to the success of the program.

Team Level: Facilitate the adoption of agile practices, support with coaching and mentoring to teams.

• Team empowerment: Self-organization and autonomous decision making should be encouraged in agile teams.
• Continuous learning culture: A fundamental aspect is to promote continuous improvement and the adoption of new agile practices.

Agile PMO Framework

An Agile PMO does not have a clear defined process, which is the great advantage, it allows you to adapt it to your organization. What you will have to take into account are certain aspects that will help you in a successful implementation.

For the framework to work, it is important to detect the value chain in the organization, and to organize the teams around it, rather than through departments, and thus facilitate the delivery of value. In a transformation this would not have to be the first step, and still achieve incredible results, what is important to keep in mind is that the organization around the value chain is the great potential of an Agile PMO and what will make you stand out from the competition.

Multiple levels with different cadences:

• Strategic level: It is important to have a strategic vision and to manage a portfolio of projects in a visual way. Both the strategy and the portfolio should be reviewed every 3 to 6 months, without losing sight of assessing that the strategy is on track at least every 15 days to 1 month, with a portfolio view and impact metrics. It includes events such as portfolio review, strategic planning and investment evaluation.
• Program level: Refers to the synchronized iteration of work by a set of teams collaborating on interrelated projects through a program. Every 2-3 months these teams plan together, setting objectives and evaluating the work done at the impact level of the previous iteration, as well as using continuous improvement mechanisms. During the iteration, these teams should synchronize at least once a week to detect risks and dependencies and review the progress of the planning.
• Team level: Refers to the regular iteration of a team’s work, generally using practices such as Scrum or Kanban. The team plans the work in deliverables every two weeks, evaluates the previous iteration, both in terms of impact and continuous improvement, and plans the work for the next iteration. The team should synchronize at least once a day to review the progress of the plan.

Roles and Responsibilities in an Agile PMO

To successfully run an Agile PMO, apart from the roles characteristic of an agile organization, a broader perspective is required. Next we will explore the roles essential to the success of the Agile PMO:

• Product Owner / Project Leader: Is the person responsible for meeting the business objectives of the product or project, aligned with the organization’s strategy, and will work in collaboration with stakeholders and work team to achieve them.
• Stakeholders:Business decision-makers, with an interest in project results. This would include anyone who will be directly or indirectly impacted by the execution or results of a project. They collaborate with the leaders of the different projects through collaboration.
• Strategic team:This is the group of people who define the strategy and prioritize the portfolio, as well as prioritize and de-prioritize projects if necessary. Normally in a company this role is performed by directors or C-Levels, although anyone with vision could fit here.
• Agile PMO Leader:The responsibilities of all the above roles revolve around the product and the market. To support the process, this role is in charge of facilitating portfolio and project tracking, is responsible for maintaining and improving the framework together with the rest of the people, helps to visualize impediments and manage them until they are resolved, and above all, is responsible for promoting agile practices and continuous improvement in the organization.

Scrum as a framework in an Agile PMO

Scrum is an agile framework that helps teams manage the value delivered and iterate quickly. It is based on the idea of dividing the work into short iterations, called sprints, which usually last 2 weeks. Within an Agile PMO, this framework would empower the team level, equip them with iteration and adaptation tools, and thus enable them to assess the impact of the work on a regular basis, which will indicate whether projects are making the desired impact, and how to iterate or slow them down when they don’t make sense.

This could be scaled to multiple teams, or value chain, for program or strategic level management, iterating every 2-3 months. There are several Scrum scaling frameworks, such as:

• Scrum at Scale: https://www.scrumatscale.com/
• Large-Scale Scrum (LeSS): https://less.works/
• Scaled Agile Framework® (SAFe®): https://scaledagileframework.com/

Activities and Tools

For each of the PMO governance levels, there are tools and activities to meet the challenges posed to an Agile PMO.

Strategic level:

• Hoshin Kanri: Tool that, in a very effective way, allows the collaboration of the entire company to achieve the strategic objectives, and how we will be able to know at all times how the organization is approaching them.
• Impact mapping: Method that allows, based on user needs and the impact on the market, to create product roadmaps in a simple way.
• Portfolio Canvas: Tool used to define the vision of the portfolio through the value proposition and the solution to be implemented, as well as the market sector to be targeted, or the budget for each of the value chains.

Program level:

• Project Dashboard: Visualization of the status of all projects and their dependencies, sorted by programs, which allows to know at any time the status of each program in real time.
• Weighted Shortest Job First (WSJF): Very effective prioritization technique that seeks to maximize economic benefits, taking into consideration, for each project, the cost of postponing its start-up compared to the time cost of implementing it.
• PI Planning: Event described in the SAFe methodological framework where all teams involved in a program plan together for two days for the next 2-3 months, allowing alignment towards short and medium term objectives.

Team level:

• Agile Project Brief: A one or two-page document that summarizes why the project is being done, what the intended impact is, and defines success metrics. Agile Project Briefs: How to Create Them Successfully – Smartway
• Design Sprints: Method by which teams work together to solve specific user problems, providing innovative solutions that will be tested by the users themselves.

Measurement and Metrics

Metrics in an Agile PMO go beyond project tracking KPIs. Since what we are looking for is an impact on the market, the important thing is not whether the projects comply with the cost, scope and time, but the impact they are generating, and to be able to adapt when we detect that the desired impact is not being generated. To this end, it is very important to carry out short projects, or MVPs that help us validate our value hypothesis, and then iterate from there. The sooner we measure the impact, the sooner we will have information if what we are doing makes sense or if we are not on the right track.

Some of the metrics that help us understand how quickly we are reaching the customer and receiving feedback are:

• Time-to-market: Also known as Lead Time, this is the time we spend implementing a solution from the moment the opportunity or need arises in the market. It indicates our ability to react and position ourselves.
• Throughput: Number of items completed in a period of time. For example 2-3 months, which is our cadence at the program level, or a 2-week sprint for teams. The higher the delivery rate, the more hypotheses we can validate for the following iterations.
• Work-in-progress (WIP): All the work we are parallelizing. There is a direct relationship, through Little’s Law, which explains that working on more things at the same time results in a lower delivery rate.
• % time resolving issues: Low quality means a high error rate. The more time we spend working out bugs, the less ability we have to come up with new initiatives in the market. This metric allows us to know in part the quality of our solutions.

Example of metrics we will need to measure impact:

• Net Promoter Score (NPS): Measurement of customer satisfaction based on the recommendation index of our product or service.
• Conversion rate: Average number of visitors who perform a desired action.
• Retention %: Percentage of customers who return to continue doing business with our product or service. Another way to understand customer satisfaction.
• Return on Investment (ROI): Ratio between the benefit obtained and the money invested, helping us to understand the economic impact.

In addition to the above, using OKR to understand how the company is moving in the right direction towards its objectives, here are some examples of key results:

• For an objective to anticipate the behavior of our customers, key results could be:
  • To get 80% of customers to enter through the PUSH notification sent in their activity band.
  • Achieve 85% of customers entering at least 1 of the first 5 recommendations.
• For an objective of enabling the company to effectively manage customer information, key example results that would indicate how close we are to the objective:
  • 20% increase in the accuracy of customer information recorded in the CRM system compared to previous systems.
  • 30% reduction in the time spent by the customer service team searching for customer information, thanks to improved accessibility.

Certification and Professionalization

Maintaining governance and innovation in an organization is not trivial, and the pursuit of excellence requires ongoing training. More than the certifications themselves, here I offer a series of tools that will help to enhance project management in the organization:

• Participate in courses and workshops There are different courses or certifications, which are updated with the latest trends. Here are some of the courses we offer.
• Join communities of professionals. As with any specialty, there are communities where best practices and experiences can be shared. In addition, creating a community in the organization is very powerful to expand the importance, knowledge and best practices shared by all members.
• Read books and articles on agile product management. There are several blogs and online communities that are continuously updated with the latest trends in agile project management. In our blog we offer different visions and practices with a very high impact.
• Keep you updated on the latest trends in agile project management.

Future of the Agile PMO

The future of Agile PMOs is marked by the evolution towards a more strategic, adaptive and integrated approach.

The main trends that will drive this change are:

• The adoption of agile culture and practices in organizations.
• The need for greater flexibility and responsiveness to market changes.
• The importance of collaboration and communication between teams.
• The rise of digital technologies and automation.

In this context, the Agile PMO will increasingly have a role focused on:

• The creation of a strategic vision for project and program management.
• The definition of an agile framework that adapts to the needs of the organization.
• The development of the teams’ capabilities to work focused on responsiveness and value maximization.
• Organizational change management associated with making the business more agile.

Apart from project management and tracking, what role should your agile PMO play in the organization?

• Agile PMO as a center of excellence: The Agile PMO can become a center of excellence for project and program management. In this role, the PMO would provide training, mentoring and support to teams that are adopting agile.
• Agile PMO as a collaboration platform: The Agile PMO can create a collaborative platform, or community of practice, for teams to share information and best practices. This platform can help improve communication and coordination between teams.
• Agile PMO as a change agent: The Agile PMO can help the organization manage the change associated with the adoption of agility. In this role, the Agile PMO would help employees understand the benefits of agility and overcome resistance to change.