At the beginning of the project, Bucero—the assigned senior program man-
ager—ran a survey to determine how well HPC supported project management.
Sixty-five percent of the staff answered the survey. The results identified specific
areas where the project culture was weak:
• No holistic view of the project portfolio
• Lack of knowledge or access to reuse previous work
• No consistent approach for complex projects
• Lack of project culture
• No consistent PM skills
• Poor scope definition, validation, and management
• Bad risk identification
• Lack of sponsorship
• Project closing delays
The results indicated HP needed an effective infrastructure for people,
processes, and tools in the project office.
Mission and Objectives
People who have never worked on a project have difficulty understanding that, to
achieve project success, the organization must support the project manager. It took
almost six weeks to get an agreement with the management team about the rea-
son for this project.
168 Creating the Project Office
Establish sense of
urgency— clear danger
• establish infrastructure:
• people, processes,
and tools
• manage stakeholders
• evolve capabilities
and capacity
• review case studies
Leading

management team in the language and format of “management think.”
The business case presented tangible benefits that could be achieved in a short
time. The content of that presentation was to explain the PMO value to the or-
ganization, cost, flexibility and creativity obstacles, PMO functions, staffing, loca-
tion, virtual teams, and establishing the project office.
Bucero defended the value of a PMO to project team members, providing
mentoring and consulting services, training, tools to be more effective, a project
library, global recognition, profitability improvement, and organizational im-
provement and quality support.
Explaining the value to the organization, he described the benefits of the cul-
tural shift to project management, in terms of reusable tools and techniques, ad-
ministrative support, visible signs of management commitment, competent project
team support, and quicker and more effective answers to questions.
In terms of cost, he argued that although establishing and running a PMO
would not be cheap, it would be worthwhile because it would be no more expen-
sive than the cumulative cost of conducting project efforts without such an office,
and might well cost less in the long run. A major feature of a PMO would be a com-
prehensive approach to PM, and it would pay for itself very soon. The PMO would
help project managers feel they were not alone on the customer site. Somebody was
supporting them from the HP organization in a way that would make them feel
more comfortable not only to implement and execute projects but also to sell more.
The business case also included a role for the PMO to support creativity, re-
flecting a bias toward centralized decision making, and supporting team members
to be more effective. The PMO team would be there to help project managers
and project teams, not thwart their efforts to do the right thing. The first key suc-
cess factor is to support project managers.
In terms of services, he proposed to start with a Document Management Sys-
tem group (DMS) as a first priority, helping PMs and consultants to generate bids
faster and with higher quality.
Implementing the Project Office 169

on March 1 at the Madrid office.
Progress was aided by collecting data on current projects that encountered
extreme deviations and showing this information at management meetings. He
audited projects that suffered from lack of scope and risk planning, noting the cost
impact on the organization. He demonstrated that most projects had no formal
sponsor and explained that impact on the organization. Making a presentation to
the management team and setting clear expectations and deliverables at the be-
ginning were key to achieving the go-ahead decision.
170 Creating the Project Office
Because project managers were used to doing all the work themselves, in-
cluding documentation and project file archiving, and did not know that help was
available, a marketing campaign was necessary to communicate the existence of
the PO and sell its benefits to the whole organization.
Bucero announced the PO’s mission statement: To support HP Project Managers
during the project selling and delivery processes so they can focus on high-quality project man-
agement and added value. He followed up by describing its objectives as follows:
• Relieve HP consultants of standard activities (low added value)
• Provide quality assurance within the project delivery process
• Serve as a breeding ground for knowledge sharing, conducting project snapshots
• Be the home front for all PM initiatives
Scope
The project office was born to relieve consultants and project managers of some
administrative activities in the delivery of customer projects, helping them to focus
on project management activities. Project office duties include managing the
Implementing the Project Office 171
FIGURE 7.1. APPROACH TO PROPOSING AND IMPLEMENTING A PMO.
Conduct
assessment
Obtain
funding and

These meetings were conducted on a monthly basis and tremendously aided the
scope verification and management processes. “All the time invested preparing
172 Creating the Project Office
FIGURE 7.2. SCHEDULE OF MEETINGS.
Presenter
Management
Meetings
PMO lead
Duration
1 hour
Preparation
Effort
2 hours
preparing
strategy
and material
Material
Delivered
Objective
Slides
copy and
PMO
white
paper
Inform and
get upper
management
commitment
AttendeesMeeting
Type

Slides
copy and
presales
PMO
services
Share
information
and ask for
feedback and
validation
Senior
consultants
in presales
activities