Effective Project Management: Traditional, Agile, Extreme, Sixth Edition

Framing PSO Objectives

Assume that you have adopted the third statement in the preceding list as the mission statement of your PSO. (I use the name PSO from this point forward in the discussion.) Because the PSO is a business unit, its objectives should be framed in business terms. The following list illustrates some examples:

• Help project teams deliver business value.
• Increase the success rates of projects by 5 percent per year until it reaches 75 percent.
• Reach PMMM Level 4.

The first statement is a bit vague in that it passes the business reason for the PSO to the project teams. However, this places the responsibility for achieving business value on the shoulders of the client. That is as it should be. The project manager and project team are the facilitators. The client has to define value and make it happen. The PSO is not responsible for business value. If you want to hold the toes of the PSO to the fire, then either the second or third statement will do the job. They are very specific and can be easily measured.

PMMM in the third statement stands for Project Management Maturity Model. It is discussed later in this chapter.