Welcome to the PMO Strategies Podcast + Blog, where PMO leaders become IMPACT Drivers!

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The Certified Agile Leadership workshops are designed for leaders that want to know how to prepare for and lead Agile transformations

Laura:
We have a really important episode for all of you PMO leaders that want to know a little bit more about Agile and if the PMO can drive an Agile transformation. This episode is sponsored by the Agile leadership journey taught by Jessie Fewell, our fantastic guest today. Now, this program is a two-day immersive retreat, equipping leaders to guide their organizational journey towards more agility. Co-created by a collective of global thought leaders, this one of a kind experience features: research-based methods, hands-on practice, and professional graphic facilitation. If you are a PMO leader, I highly recommend this course to help you position yourself and your PMO at the center of a shift to a more Agile organization. Just use code LAURAVIP for a discount exclusively for my listeners.

You can find more about the upcoming events, there’s one in Dallas in April on the 20th and 21st Boston, May 27th and 28th and I’m even spending my own money to attend this workshop when it happens in DC, because I believe that all of us can get a little bit more Agile and learn how to drive Agile transformation better in our organizations. And if I’m doing it, you know I think it’s important and I don’t want to learn this stuff from anyone but Jesse Fewell because he is my go-to Agile guy. So make sure you check it out at www.jessefewell.com/cal and join me in getting the CAL certification and badge associated with this workshop. Thank you so much for being here today, Jesse.

Jesse:
Woo. I’m so excited. We got lots to talk about!

Laura:

Before we dive in, let me tell the audience a little bit more about you in case they don’t know who you are. So, Jesse is an author, coach, and trainer who helps senior leaders from Boston to Bangalore transform their organizations worldwide. As a project management pioneer, he founded and grew the original PMI Agile Community of Practice to 18,000 members and 40 volunteer leaders. He co-created the PMI ACP Agile certification and coauthored the Agile Practice Guide, which has been translated into 11 languages. He is author of the upcoming book, Untapped Agility, Transforming Your Transformation, equipping leaders to drive new ways of working. He’s also a graduate of Johns Hopkins university and he is a dual certified coach, a certified enterprise coach and leadership circle profile and an accredited instructor with multiple Agile certification bodies. So now you see why I say he is my go-to Agile guy for anything related to Agile.  So, thank you Jesse for being here.

Jesse:
Super impressed that you read through that whole thing. I am super excited to be here and on your podcast. You’re helping a lot of people sharing lots of great ideas in the marketplace of project leaders.

Laura:

Yeah, thank you so much Jesse for discussing an important topic like this that I think is on the minds of a lot of PMO leaders these days. Can the PMO drive an Agile transformation or does the PMO just get shoved aside when we start thinking about Agile.  I think this is why we needed to have this conversation. And for those of you that don’t know, Jesse and I have shared the stage several times now, having this whole conversation around the PMO versus Agile, the whole us and them argument. You may have seen us at the PMI PMO Symposium last year in 2019, we also keynoted PROJECTCON earlier in the year in Indianapolis. This is a must see keynote, if you ever get the chance. People love it because we say all the things that everybody’s thinking, right?

Jesse:

Yeah. Yeah. You PMO people, you don’t get Agile. You’re the whole reason we need Agile is all your command and control and your process is the number one reason why management is successful and …. And then, and then Laura gets up and says, well you Agile people, you don’t get it cause you’re just all about cowboy coders and do whatever you want and kumbaya in the world or, or you’re the other kind of Agile guy where it’s like, can we talk about our feelings and not get any work done? And yeah, we just put it out there. And so, it’s been a conversation that resonates with a lot of people because there’s very real beef, very real tension out there in the office around these two communities bumping up against each other. And it turns out that it’s just the wrong conflict. It’s the wrong conversation. And I’m excited to kind of dig through it with you a little bit here in front of your audience.

Laura:

Yeah, thank you. Thank you so much Jesse. I appreciate that. And for all of you PMO leaders listening, if you are curious what’s going on in the Agile space, if your organization is starting to talk about an Agile transformation, this is the opportunity for you to double down, to lean in and put yourself and your PMO in the driver’s seat.

We’re going to talk to you today about the way that you can do that, what’s going on in this space and how you can get involved and how to make it a lot less scary. Let’s remove the unknowns, talk about what really needs to be done here and we’ll go make a bigger IMPACT of the PMO. Okay, so Jesse, let’s talk about first things first. Why is there such a big gap, even hostility that we make fun of on the stage, between the PMO and Agile communities. Why do you think that is?

Jesse:

I think the number one reason is that we as PMO leaders misunderstand what a PMO is supposed to be about in the first place. It is not about mandating project management processes across an organization. And too often PMO leaders have been promoted up out of their project management function and responsibilities into a PMO role and they bring a project manager mindset, when in fact as a PMO leader, you’re leading a business, you’re leading a service, you’re leading an organizational transformational function about improving an organization’s execution.

The Agile Leadership Journey provides education, direction and coaching for leaders to personally navigate their own path toward improved leadership effectiveness and improving the effectiveness of their organizations.  Great for all PMO leaders and PMs!

Jesse:
A lot of PMO leaders, they end up being carpenters in search of nails as opposed to problem solvers. And I think that’s where it stems because that’s the brand that I see a lot of PMO leaders either having, bringing into their function or at least having to overcome from their function. Oh, you’re the PMO, I know what you’re all about. Do you see that with the PMOs that you work with, that there’s either that assumption that that’s my job or that there’s the baggage that I have to overcome around that perception?

Laura:

Oh my gosh, it’s yes, like all the time. So first, I just want to comment on this concept of like they grew up from project management. That is so true. And I see it all the time. And frankly, it’s not their fault, right. Because when you’re getting a PMP, for example, or any other project management certification and training, it’s all about the templates and the tools and the process. In fact, we have a version of a PMP training course, and when we go teach it with our clients, I’m constantly saying, okay, this is all the stuff you need to know to get your certification, but don’t forget why you’re doing it, which is to achieve outcomes, not just outputs, right. And so there’s this whole layer of Laura needs to break this down for you to understand why this is just the means to the end, not the end itself.

But that’s how they’re trained. They’re trained to focus on the inputs, outputs, tools and techniques. That’s what they are supposed to focus on.  So that is ingrained in them, that they need to be thinking about those things. And then they do a really good job with that. And they do a great job leading teams. And if they’re a part of my IMPACT Driver community, they even understand then that they still have to be thinking about the outcomes, but then they graduate if you will, into this different role and they try bring a lot of those same techniques with them. For example, a charter is for a project. A charter is not for a PMO, because a PMO is not a project, it is a business unit, therefore, it needs to be treated like a business unit. So that’s just one example of the many of what I call IMPACT PMO leader mindset shifts that you have to make when you go into this business unit role with a PMO and a lot of them aren’t taught that.

Where are they learning that? Unless they’re in my IMPACT Engine PMO training program, I don’t actually know any other programs that are teaching them that. So, it’s not really their fault.

Jesse:

That’s losing sight of the forest for the trees and we have only ourselves as a project management community to blame.  To your point that on one hand the PMP has this virtuous role of incentivizing growth and learning in the craft. The dark side of that is that we teach everybody a color by numbers, cookie cutter, one size fits all approach to providing project structure. And so when you get promoted into a PMO role, then the challenge that’s been put in front of you is that your job just got fundamentally more strategic than tactical and yet, many of us have been thrust into a strategic role without a lot of equipment or training or developing that kind of a way of working.

Laura:
Right. And there’s one thing that I want to make sure people know if they are listening to this and they’re wondering more about those mindsets. Go back and listen to episode zero through eight of this podcast. You will learn all about the PMO reset. You will learn all about these mindsets and it’ll help you make that shift into that more business focused, outcome focused IMPACT mindset that I talk about. But here’s the other interesting thing, Jesse, that you talked about, which was the way that people think, the brand of the PMO, the way people think about the PMO. I have had three different conversations this week with one client and two students where they were talking about how they can’t call it a PMO in their organization because the minute they do, people have this impression of what the PMO is, and it’s all about the templates, the tools and the process and the running around with their clipboards and the checkboxes and the, you know, administrivia.

Jesse:
Uh, yes, the PMO is here with the clipboard and we are here to audit your processes. Uh, where are your papers? Uh, and please tell me, have you filled out the templates. We are here with the political bureau and we’re here to provide lots of bureaucracy, and you’re not compliant and the bad dog goes down in corner and not to get your funding. Uh, yes. And that’s what they think! And in fact, this was the entire motivation for the Agile movement in the 90s. The Agile movement exists in direct resistance to that negative stereotype.

So if you want to be part of the Agile conversation, just accept it, that you are considered the enemy. You are considered the very reason for agility because of this perception of project management as this one size fits all rules driven approach to management. And so, if you want to be a part of the Agile conversation, understand where the baggage is and then sidestep it. And to your point, maybe we don’t call it a PMO anymore, maybe we call it a strategic realization office.

Laura:
Yeah. And I just told a client this week and a student this week to call it a strategy execution office, because that’s what fits in their environment with what they’re trying to do.

Jesse:
And Agile people have a phrase for it too. They call it an Agile Center of Excellence… Boom. That’s right. Agile people. Your favorite organizational function is the exact same thing as a PMO, you just call it something different because it’s all got Agile flavor to it. So yeah, maybe you’re a project center of excellence or maybe you’re an execution center of excellence, but understand that there is some baggage around that, and then once you do, then you can begin to understand how you can add value in a frame and in a narrative that fits the native tongue of your audience.

The Agile Leadership Journey provides education, direction and coaching for leaders to personally navigate their own path toward improved leadership effectiveness and improving the effectiveness of their organizations.  Great for all PMO leaders and PMs!

Laura:
Right, exactly. So that’s a really important step for you guys to think about here. And again, this podcast is littered with episodes talking about all of this. So, you’ve got tons and tons of listening content and transcripts on the website. If you want to go check them out@pmostrategies.com because I’m talking about this literally in every episode, because I think it’s so important that we shed that brand that we have as administrative overhead and start becoming IMPACT Drivers and an IMPACT Engine for our organization because the opportunity’s there and it’s in front of us. And I think personally, the PMO done right, is the best positioned organization inside a broader company to drive Agile transformation.

Jesse:
Ding, ding, ding. Let’s talk about that. Okay, so there, there’s the baggage. Okay. I did a little bit history lesson and now that you understand history, you know that I need to reposition. So it turns out that Agile change leaders, Agile champions, and PMO leaders like Laura, share a lot of common convictions. Common convictions such as structure matters. Let’s talk about creating a backlog. Let’s talk about formalizing a team and by formalizing a team as much as possible, let’s have them focused on just this one particular initiative instead of being fragmented across five or six. And let’s talk about getting a single point of contact that represents business interests and desires. And let’s talk about facilitating alignment on those interests and desires and alignment with the implementation strategy.

Jesse:
There’s a lot of commonality, it’s just a matter of trying to have a conversation about where do we want to start trying these different ways of working, when and how much of it. And now we’re talking about context, which is another thing that we have in common around tailoring. Too many project leaders. Forget about tailoring, we’re looking for the, what’s our official methodology at this organization. Let’s roll it out with some people, process and tools. And then let’s roll out some templates and they’re like, we have our one methodology and we forgot to tailor for context. It’s another very deeply held conviction in the Agile community. That context is King and if you have your WBS or your SRS or whatever your favorite technique is, allow people, encourage people to kind of tailor that approach, including tailoring their Agile approaches to their contract. So those are just some of the first few things that pop into my head about what these communities have in common.

Laura:
That’s part one though. We’ve talked about the conflict that we see with those on the ground. And why there’s so much resistance and you’re talking about some ways that we can work together with kind of the boots on the ground people, but what about the executives? Here’s a whole different part of this puzzle. Why do the executives look at the PMO and say, no, the PMO is not really a good candidate to lead this Agile transformation, we need a totally different function. And I think that’s probably even more so a problem, than the boots on the ground folks, because these are the decision makers and they’re looking at the PMO and seeing that it’s not equipped to drive a transformation. But I can tell you, many times when I was building and running PMOs inside organizations, they were responsible for big transformation of all kinds. In fact, in my last PMO role as an officer of a very big organization, it was called a business transformation group. That’s what we did. But really it was just a PMO, they just didn’t want to call it that.  And it was responsible for driving transformation. So why is it that executives think that is not a role for a PMO?

Jesse:
Well, there’s a couple of things at play. One of them might be that you have two different senior leaders fighting for credit. I saw this at one financial institution where the VP of the PMO wanted to drive an Agile transformation and then the VP of technology, he was like, I’m going to drive it. And so they’re going to pick their own pet vendor or their own pet department to drive it. And that might be based on the relationships, the org chart, so relationships matter. If you have a strong relationship with the senior leaders, I’m here to tell you, leverage it. Leverage the credibility you have based on the previous transformations that you’ve led and then to talk about how you can help cement that senior leader’s legacy cause a lot of senior leaders, that’s why they feel that they’re there, that they earned the right to their role because they have a mandate for change and they have a mandate to leave an imprint and so you then are there as a service.

Jesse:
You serve at the pleasure of that senior leader and your ability to cement their legacy. That’s number one. Number two is that perception issue. Perception is reality for senior leaders and so if they perceive you as being the process police, then you’re going to have to fix that before you have any shot at winning people over at the board room. And so, it might be time for you to start running your own Agile pilots without permission. It might be time for you to go to your own Agile training without permission. And then when you walk into that boardroom you’re like, Hmm, actually we’re well on our way to our own Agile competency development. Let me talk to you about this pilot that we’ve done. Oh, you didn’t know about it? Oh yeah, it’s all the rage. Just go ask the HR group and let me tell you about the 14 different certificates that I have in my department and how they’ve been trained in multiple methods and multiple approaches. Then you might be able to spin the perception in your favor. So those are two things I would encourage you about the senior leader.

Laura:
Oh my gosh, those are so fundamental and I’m constantly talking to my IMPACT Drivers about the concept of becoming the trusted advisor in their organization and that the role of the PMO leader and the PMO staff and the PMO is an entity, an organization, a business unit, needs to be the go to, the trusted advisor. When we have a challenge, we want to bring you to a seat at the table to have a conversation with us about how this should go and what we should be doing. And if you don’t have that, you’re going to have a very hard time being successful and driving any kind of change, much less a big Agile transformation. Everything I teach, Jessie as you know, has an organizational change management thread running through it, because all of this is about people and all of this is about the relationships and all of this is about bringing people along with you through the change process. And if you can’t do that, you might as well just pack it up and go, because at some point you’re going to be on the chopping block because people, you know when times get tough, when the next market crash happens, when the next big market disruptor happens and affects your organization, when something happens and they need to make cuts, instead of being at that table driving the decisions and helping to execute those decisions, you are going to be on the chopping block because they don’t see value in you.

The Agile Leadership Journey provides education, direction and coaching for leaders to personally navigate their own path toward improved leadership effectiveness and improving the effectiveness of their organizations.  Great for all PMO leaders and PMs!

Jesse:
Yes. Be that person that is going to be that trusted advisor. Be proactive. Don’t sit back and wait for somebody to decide how the Agile movement is going to IMPACT your PMO, be the voice of how that IMPACT is going to happen. And be prepared for being written off. There’s one scenario that a different financial institution I was working with, where the PMO leader was trying his best. He was trying to kind of move it in a certain direction and trying to be a part of that change. He even rebranded the PMO to that strategic execution office and he felt like it was moving further and further out of his control. And this becomes a leadership test. This becomes a test of your personal leadership capacity. Are you ready to facilitate a distributed transformation with lots of leaders involved that you are not the center of gravity or are you the kind of leader that absolutely feels most confident being the center of gravity where all the transformation activities are coming through you and your office.

And if you are one or the other, then be prepared for not being compatible with the new senior leader’s expectation to have a senior leader who wants a single point of contact, but you’re just not comfortable being that person. Or you might have a senior leader that wants a more distributed, dynamic, organic, emergent transformation and you’re not comfortable with that approach. So, it might be that you’ve done the greasing of the skids and the socialization and the interaction and the rebranding and repositioning, and then you find out you’re just fundamentally not compatible with that senior leader’s vision. So sometimes, it is time to look in the mirror and ask, am I the right leader for this kind of context, in this kind of situation. And it might be time for you to go on a kind of a journey of your own or it might be time to find another fit.

Laura:
Yeah. You know, there’s a whole module in my program and then my mindset’s on this concept of adapting to thrive and let’s get out of the survival mode and start becoming the nimble Agile leader that our organizations need. And it’s all about being able to be that chameleon and shift as the needs of the organization shift. And I think a lot of PMO leaders, not all of them, but a lot of them are used to being the control center.  And so it will feel very uncomfortable to let go of that control in a more distributed kind of Agile transformation journey. However, there is still a critical role that the PMO can play. And I’d like to dig in with some different suggestions you have on that, but I feel like there’s a critical role that the PMO leader can play and the PMO can play, in not controlling and driving, but facilitating and providing some oversight and some governance and maybe some communications mechanisms. Like instead of having to be the center, what if we’re just communicating as to what’s going on and how the progress is going and where there might be gaps and opportunities.

And so we can be in a more facilitative role and still be the go to, to get the summary information or the dashboard, if you will, of how the transformation journey is going. Because that’s still a very critical place that the PMO could participate without having to own and drive it. But what if we could support you, leadership team, and make sure that you know how it’s going, and then the PMO still has their tentacles in everything. They don’t have to be the owner, but they can still have their seat at the table and still have a contribution that they’re making.

Jesse:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s awesome. There are two critical characteristics that most PMOs and PMO leaders have, that make them uniquely qualified to drive Agile transformation. Number one, most project leaders and PMO functions are at the center of the organization. You have your tentacles in every department. You have a relationship with every leader of every function, because let’s face it, most projects today are super complicated and interdependent. It’s been argued, every project is a technology project and every project is an HR project, right? So already you probably know those people pretty well.

And so I would say leverage that.  You know, I’m really concerned about this Agile vendor coming to drive our transformation. First of all it’s ours and not theirs. And second of all, they don’t have the relationships that we have. And I just feel uncomfortable about challenging our leaders without that internal relationship in place that we have. I think the newly named a strategic execution office is best positioned with those relations. So that’s number one. And number two, you have a lot of Agile people come to, you know, we need a new culture. Well, a culture that’s, more self-organized and empowered and we need a lot more creativity. And so as a PMO leader, I’m going to say that’s excellent. I’m totally on board. How do you intend to operationalize that new culture? How do you intend to measure that new culture or measure the lift from our current state to our future state?

Well, you know what, I happen to be trained in 14 different change management techniques and I happened to be trained in three different quantitative methods to do a culture survey and how to operationalize it and measure it. And that tends to be something that’s unique to what a PMO’s toolkit and a project manager’s tool kit can offer. So, your relationships being in the center of the organization and your major structure to sort of counteract and mobilize the kind of Agile culture talk. Those are two key unique skill sets you can bring to the table.

Laura:

Ah, that is fantastic. And I’m actually going to do an episode coming up here to talk about a full list of things that I see that PMO leaders can do specifically to support and kind of break those barriers between the PMO and Agile, so everyone stay tuned for more of that, it’s coming up soon. And in the meantime, I want to leave people with my top tip and your top tip for how to get started.  I am going to plug your CAL Certification Leadership Journey course that’s coming up. That’s my plug because like I said, if I’m investing my time and energy and money and going to this certification program, I think it’s worth it and I think it’s a great way for PMO leaders specifically or anybody that’s in that leadership role that’s responsible for driving transformation the organization. This is a perfect way to say, actually, I’ve got the training and the badge to prove it, this is the best way to go on that journey. And so, my top tip for them would be to get into that training. Find out at www.jessefewell.com/cal where the next classes are taking place and get one of those. Jesse, what would you advise people besides taking your course with you, what else can they do to get ahead of or to respond to this shift, this Agile transformation, the shift in mindsets, people and operations moving in this direction, no matter where they are on that spectrum, what could they do to participate and make the PMO not just relevant but high IMPACT in that kind of a transformation?

Jesse:
So I’m inspired right now to focus on one of the seven leadership moves or PMO leader moves that I described in my book that’s coming up in July and we’ll cut another episode in the podcast on that for sure. But there’s one move in there that is essential, when it comes to the transformation, be prepared to give it away. And we alluded to this earlier about like being used to being the engineer and the coordinator, the single point of contact, the center of gravity. And what’s happening in the world of project management across the globe, is that project management is expanding to be much more broad of a discipline, much more interdisciplinary of a craft. And so, I know a lot of longtime career PM practitioners and project leaders who are used to staying in their lane and having things that belong in their lane belonged to them.

And my number one tip to you is to expand your perspective to where you can add value in more places than you could ever imagine. And that you can influence more people in more ways than you can ever imagine, instead of just being locked into your PM toolkit. We are masters of change, all of us as project leaders, whether you’re in the PMO or your PM, we take current state to future state. And what’s happening in the world of projects is that means that we are becoming more and more diverse in our skillsets and called into more and more different places. So, my number one tip is expand. Expand yourself to fill the space that project management is filling.

Laura:
Oh gosh, that’s perfect. I couldn’t agree more and we need to think very broadly about our role, the role of the PMO and project management, and that’s how we continue to evolve to stay relevant, not just relevant, but high IMPACT in organizations. Jesse, thank you so much for joining me here and sharing your Agile brilliance with my IMPACT Driver audience. Again, everybody, go to www.jessefewell.com/cal  if you’re interested in taking one of his certified Agile leadership workshops All right guys, we’ll see you next week. Have a great and a high IMPACT day.

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Warmly,

Laura Barnard