total). As of this writing, the Group Program Office has been resized to four to
meet current business demands. The three divisions that implemented Divisional
Program Offices have two to three people in each office.
Lessons Learned
Setting up of a program office is all about improving business performance. Rowe
believes the processes used need to become second nature to the people running
the business. To achieve this they must be very easily integrated into the day to
day business. Complicated systems with lots of bells and whistles are generally not
acceptable as they distract people and prevent them from being high performers.
Rowe also believes that there is not any one system or process that will fit every
organization, therefore, a program office has to be tailor-made for the business.
This means that the best people to set up program offices should have a good un-
derstanding of the culture of the business.
The program office must be closely linked to the top of the business and to
decision makers. Progress on projects and programs is often slowed because man-
agers do not understand or have not been communicated with. Therefore, one
key role of program managers is to be able to influence key senior people. When
this ability exists and is exercised, roadblocks get removed.
A program office should have clear and well understood processes, but should
not live only by these processes. The role is to drive value for the business (and
therefore for the shareholders). If PO processes are gold plated and business per-
formance is down, then the PO is not doing what it needs to be doing. Rowe says,
“Businesses that are doing this stuff well are getting results by integrating robust
changes into the culture of the business; they are not shouting from the rooftops
that they are running programs with great systems to drive improvement.”
Project Management in Action
The following outline documents a response to the Australian Stock Exchange re-
quest concerning the Y2K problem as it related to Goodman Fielder Limited.
Background.
Goodman Fielder’s principal activities are the manufacture and sale
of consumer foods and ingredients. Major product areas include grain-based

monthly reports to the Board of Directors, the Audit Committee, and the Exec-
utive Committee.
To facilitate the project, nine project teams were assembled, each represent-
ing a division of the organization. Each team was headed by a designated project
manager who in turn reported to the Y2K Program Office.
A significant observation about successful project office implementations is
that they occupy a prominent, visible, and important position on the organization
chart. The Y2K example reflects a sense of urgency, a vision about the desired
outcome, and how an important project needs a project office reporting high up
in the organization (alignment with powerful forces), which offers them a promi-
nent and authoritative role to complete a mandatory program that by itself is not
a project people want to do.
Maturity
Maturity models offer a means to assess where an organization currently resides
with regard to where it can be along a continuum of progression within a dis-
cipline of knowledge. Refer to Crawford (2001) and Kerzner (2001) for detailed
In or Out? 239
descriptions of project management maturity models. A project office is usually
established by the time an organization reaches higher levels of maturity. Keep in
mind how many people accept, are uncomfortable with, or integrate the change
when gauging the project maturity of your organization. Chapter Five describes
the dialogue that a maturity model offers within the 3M Company. Here we offer
a few more words about how maturity affects the operation of a project office.
A strategic project office monitors the progress and effectiveness of the change
to the organization and makes adjustments as necessary. Kent Crawford of PM
Solutions, a former PMI president, says it is possible to prepare people for cul-
tural change by helping them accept ambiguity, prepare for possible scenarios,
have fun in order to survive, forget consensus (conquer through collaboration),
adopt to life in the chasm (that space between the known and the unknowns), and
recognize a task is for today while the system is for always.

Since the rise and fall of a project office is another prominent theme, let us look
at steps along this path. Previous work (Graham and Englund, 1997, Chapter 9)
described the Project Management Initiative at Hewlett-Packard Company. This
investment focused on corporate resources to help people anywhere and every-
where in the organization improve the environment and skills for effective project
management. Figure 9.6 reflects a timeline and update.
Events in the company’s response to competitive time-to-market needs in-
voked an assessment of its project management needs. The initiative has been a
stabilizing factor. The PM Council, a guiding coalition, helped get it started but
lost relevance when the initiative was established and self-funded. Figure 9.6 shows
it disbanding after the first few years.
Training was an ongoing activity, supplemented by concise documented
process sheets. Conferences were held every two years until large attendance made
them too visible (and perceived as expensive).
In or Out? 241
FIGURE 9.6. A TIMELINE OF ACTIVITIES AND PEOPLE IMPACT AT HP.
Situation assessment
1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000
People Impact
Project management initiative
PM council
Training
Information resources
PM conferences
Consulting
Self-funding
Upper management conference
Business initiatives
Web site
WebShops

downfall. Marketing takes time and effort, and that effort takes away from devel-
oping new products and value-added services (unless the initiative balances its port-
folio to include these activities). Internal customers become annoyed with endless
e-mail marketing campaigns about course offerings. The problem compounds when
numerous corporate programs advertise through the same channels. Divisions typ-
ically ask corporate groups to get their acts together into one package. However, de-
veloping that package is a massive program itself—and is quickly abandoned.
Leadership needs to be clear about the purpose and focus it wants from the
project office. Self-funding may be appropriate if the PO is viewed as a stand-
242 Creating the Project Office