Brightmoon Consulting & Training

PMO stands for Project Management Office; in same cases it means Programme Management Office. As per the illustration on the left, PMO can exist in various levels in a company. Some companies have it formally established with dedicated personnel and budget. While some have a person to perform some duties of a PMO, such as Program Director, Project Director and Senior Project Manager.

PMO duties generally comprise of:-

• Monitor and control the health of each maneuver (i.e.: Project, Programme)
  
• Define the standard Project Management methodology (i.e. processes, tools, templates & etc.)
  
• Ensure the projects are adhering to the methodology to deliver predictable outcomes
  
• Continue improve and propagate Project Management methodology
  
• Provide guidance and support to team members (e.g.: Project Managers, Team Leads)
  
• Manage dependencies among projects
• Serve as a communication platform across projects

Agile software development means that :-

1. All stakeholders accept the fact that all requirements to meet strategic demand & roadmap cannot be fully and clearly understood upfront. These requirements will change and project team especially developers should anticipate and welcome the change as the project progresses.

2. There will be many short releases on weekly/bi-weekly/monthly of small increments (working software features or modules). The short cycle and small increments forces project team and customer to prioritize most valuable/important features, thus enables customers to start using the system much earlier. It also ensures money is spent first on the most important features thus reduces financial risk in case project comes to an abrupt end. The shorter release cycles enables faster customer feedback on the features and greatly reduces risk of misunderstood requirement. The cycle will repeat until all requirements are implemented (all backlogs are cleared).

3. There will be continuous integration and testing at each cycle. Continuous integration and testing forces the increments to fully comply with systems requirements thus reduces any technical risk.

4. Customers have active role to ensure successful completion of the project (successful development and delivery of the software). This is because there will be higher visibility throughout the project. Any deviation can be quickly corrected. Deviation risk is limited to one cycle time whatever it may be weekly/bi-weekly/monthly.

If you need further clarification on agile software development can be adopted by your organization or how it can benefit you, do connect with us.

Many organizations are good at planning. They are equally good at implementing their plan. Unfortunately the process ends there for most organizations. They are often busy and occupied with the current work and issues that they don't usually check what they are doing and how they are doing them. In other words, they hardly do audit on the activities.

Audit are important as it will uncover mismatches between what is documented with what is actually being done. It will help to uncover the deviation between what is thought to be happening or out to happen with what is actually happening. Most of the time, the deviation is intentional. The original (documented) process may be not practical or relevant anymore so the guys down there (implementers) will modify and tweak the process to suit their work.

A good audit process will also be able to gather what are the deviation and why they occur. It will help to solicit the pain points. It will also provide a relevant recommendation as to how those mismatched can be addressed.

It is good that all processes, procedures, templates and tools are continuously reviewed and improved every 3 to 6 months. if you need any help to perform audit for your project management and software development activities, please connect with us.

Requirements, one of the most important, if not, THE most important artifact in any project. Managing them is most probably one of the toughest task (second to managing PEOPLE, of course !) that any seasoned project manager will attest to. Many projects failed or often gets delayed because requirements are not managed properly.

It is simple yet complicated. It is known yet unknown. It is understood yet misunderstood. it is documented yet undocumented.

At best, managing requirements is a misunderstood activity. Often, gathering requirements stops at talking to business folks. Often, it stops at explicit requirements.

At worst, managing requirements is a mishandled activity. Multiple or no requirements owner. Not documented, initially may be but as the project progresses, the requirements document are not updated accordingly. Not properly prioritized. No unique identification. Not traceable to the originator nor to the implementation.

But worry not, requirements can be managed successfully. The first step is to realize and accept the common pitfalls as mentioned above. Second step is to identify and develop suitable procedures, process and templates as well as identify suitable tools. Third is to get everyone aware and trained on those procedures, process, templates and tools. Fourth, to implement auditing and reporting to ensure the procedures, process, templates and tools are being practiced as intended. Last but not least, those procedures, process, templates and tools should be continuously evaluated and improved.

If you would like to know more on the process, procedures, templates or tools, please connect with us.

A quick check list

1. Do you struggle to keep up with changes happening around you ?
2. Does your employees resist when you try to introduce changes ?
   
3. Does your projects completion gets delayed often due to changes in requirements and resources ?
   
4. Do you find it hard or even impossible to manage requirements for your projects ?

If the answer for any one of the questions is YES, connect with us.