Program/Portfolio Management

Instead of using ‘accidental’ project managers (software developers, engineers who find themselves managing projects on the side), we will help you reduce risks by using our professional project managers and business analysts for your technology projects. We will provide both strategic and tactical project management support.  We use accepted methodologies (Waterfall or Agile) and artifacts with our extensive experience to ensure effective scope and quality management, schedule management, and risk management. As an objective party, we work with you to tailor project management tools and methodologies to your culture and project needs.

One of the first challenges of any project initiation is securing the necessary level of authority and control over the project. In today’s complex environment, individual projects are being managed by different groups and have different corporate sponsors, rendering it difficult to answer questions regarding project status, financials, and issue management. Moreover, many project sponsors are reluctant to sign up for the common standards of process and performance they felt to be essential to the success of the overall program –due to apparent fear of losing control. To address this issue, BPM Advisors engages the sponsors in workshops with a dual objective: to understand the sponsors’ concerns and to obtain their commitment to the program (or portfolio). We will navigate through the ‘turf war’, sphere of influence to bring the relevant parties together in agreement hence ensuring the project success from the get-go.

We can assist you in establishing an internal Project Management Office (PMO), or provide all services offered by a PMO to ensure project lifecycle success. An effective PMO will have impact far beyond the improvement that can be achieved in project delivery. Through better alignment and consistent delivery, PMOs can play a strategic role in satisfying the organization’s primary business objectives.
To establish an internal PMO, our focus is primarily based on establishing ‘Governance’ and accountability through this effort. A PMO roll out would largely consist of the following stages:

• Due Diligence – Every organization has different needs.  We will study the culture and the need of the organization, and recommenda PMO type. Two basic models: a consultancy hub which provides project managers in business units with training, guidance and best practices; and a best-practices center with project managers on staff who are loaned out to business units to work on projects.
• Governance- We will help identify PMO mission, vision, artifacts (templates, documents etc.) internal clients, establish clear ownership and authority Responsibility without proper authority leads nowhere. We will help you create a team with solid leadership and defined roles and responsibilities
• Baseline – We will set expectations and goals to be measured against
• Implement -  Roll out PMO
• Periodic Evaluation – We will continue to nurture and monitor the progress against defined baseline, and address any gap until the PMO reaches its maturity

In addition to consolidated project plans and financial tracking, we provide common processes for issue tracking, change management, and status reporting etc.  The PMO services include regularly scheduled onsite or virtual meetings between the relevant parties of projects to address conflicting priorities and to deal with scheduling and resource problems as soon as they surface. Senior management receives monthly reports detailing current project status, financial performance against plan, and major issues. These controls are also enforced across the product vendors and/or consulting firms that provide specific product knowledge and customizations.