Creating a Methodology Case Study

Title: Creating a Methodology Case Study

Summary:

“This case is about a company whose president is John Compton. He is worried about his company’s performance and the reason behind his worry is his inactive staff. According to John, his company is not doing well in the market and the main reason behind this is the lack of project management methodology. He asked several times for a methodology, but the senior staff was afraid of losing some power in the order of implementation of the methodology. So he warned his staff about making one and gave them a deadline of 6 months. As a part of developing the methodology, a consultant was brought into the company before one year. He explained the importance of EPM and the necessity of the PMO. But due to the concentration of power into single persons’ hand, the executive staff became reluctant about supporting this. But due to the company president's ultimatum, the PMO was formed. The PMO was answerable to the chief information officer. The PMO concluded a five step initial methodology. The first step would be, establishing a number of life cycle phases and after several discussions, they settled on no more than six life-cycle phases. The second step would be about the structure and nature of the methodology. So the PMO decided to pick up more informal approach in order to grant some work freedom to the project manager. In the third step, they developed a standardized set of documents. In the fourth measure, they evolve a means for capturing best practices using the EPM system. The fifth and final step involves education and training of project managers and functional organizations. “

Questions:

1. What can you determine about the corporate culture from the fact that they waited this long to consider the development of an EPM system?

• “According to my opinion, everybody from the organization knew the necessity of implementing an EPM system. But they were afraid of losing some power. This leads them to wait and delay the development of EPM system. “

1. Can a PMO accelerate the implementation process?

• “Yes, the PMO will definitely accelerate the implementation process. The reason behind this is that the PMO performs following rolls- project management guidance to project managers in business units, develop and implement a consistent and standardized process, conduct training programs or collect requirements for an outside company. A single person will hold the authority and thus results in clear commands and progress. “

1. Is it acceptable for the PMO to report to the chief information officer or to someone else?

• “There may occur some conflicts as one single person will become more powerful than the others and most important thing is that all staff members from PMO are senior project managers and thus some ego issues may arise in some cases. “

1. Why is it best to have six or less life-cycle phases in an EPM system?

• “Each life cycle means a gate review meeting and with that gate review meeting, a project manager needs to prepare some paperwork. So lesser the life-cycle phases, lesser will be the time spent on paperwork by project managers and thus he can spend more time on managing project. “

1. Is it best to design an EPM system around flexible or inflexible elements? Generally, when first developing an EPM system, do companies prefer to use formality or informality in the design?

• “The best way to design an EPM system is, to design it around flexible elements. It will give project manager more degree of freedom and most important thing is that, the project manager can decide and design methodology according to client needs and project demands. “ 

1. Should an EPM system have the capability of capturing best practices?

• “EPM was designed to fill the strategy to execution gap. It’s the new approach to management that makes strategy everyone’s job, that gives them the tools and processes to execute based on focus, alignment, and accountability. So yes, I think the EPM should have the capability of capturing the best practices.”