Project Portfolio Management: A View From The Management Trenches

11.8. PROJECT MANAGEMENT STANDARDS COMMITTEE

The primary purpose of this group is to develop a common definition of terms and processes for the company that is agreed upon mutually by all business units. The PMO in essence could define all the processes, provide specific definition of all terms, and hand these out to the organization. However, when the PMO does that, in essence acting as the "process police," the chance of getting organizational buy-in is low. There are advantages, however, in developing processes and definitions collaboratively:

• People feel empowered to contribute toward something that has a lot of visibility in the organization and they also feel good about their contribution.

• These individuals become the advocates of a process they've defined. Chances of sustaining the process are higher.

• Communication of the process using consistent terminology across the company is easier, since these individuals share the PM standards committee decisions with their respective departments.

Several other key participants are integral to making the process work: program and project managers, business analysts, developers, and other contributors. Unless everyone performs their roles as per the defined process, PPM will not function optimally.

Figure 11.1 visually represents the relationship among each of the committees described above.

Figure 11.1. Various organizational structures are involved in the execution of the project portfolio. This graphic shows some common ones and ...