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The article is based on material in the white paper “Building and Leading a Successful Global PMO and PM Professional Program,” presented by Ron Kempf, PMP, at PMI Global Congress 2004—Europe.

DEVELOPING A STRONG PMO FRAMEWORK SET THE STAGE FOR HP’S GREAT RESULTS IN PROJECT MANAGEMENT.

SOLID FOUNDATION BY MARCIA JEDD

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

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Consistent and strong project management processes and methodologies ensure higher success rates. A centralized PMO (project management office) structure brings scalable capability to the discipline. Project managers are ed and nurtured by plenty of training, tiered certification programs and venues to share knowledge. Methods to continuously improve project outcomes and the project management discipline include up-to-date project management software reporting as well as formal and informal opportunities to share experiences.

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TECH GIANT

Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP), Palo and provide project management mentorship to project Alto, Calif., USA, had humble managers worldwide. Today, Ms. Speitel and Mr. Kempf beginnings. Electrical engineers are ed by a few other PMO staff in the United States to Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard comprise the worldwide PMO office at HP. The global officially launched HP in PMO is ed by regional PMOs in the Americas, Packard’s tiny garage in 1939, where it built and sold oscil- Europe, Mideast and Africa (EMEA), Asia Pacific and lators to the Walt Disney Co., one of its first customers. Japan, as well as individual country PMOs. Around the time HP went public in the late 1950s, digital >In short, HP’s PMO structure provides the for circuit maker Digital Equipment Corp. was just forming. In new business development and training of HP project man1998, Digital Equipment was swallowed by PC maker Com- agers worldwide. “We don’t manage the projects through the paq Computer Corp., the largest acquisition ever in the PMOs. We the organization to the projects,” Mr. Kempf says, noting the PMOs work closely with industry, later topped by HP’s 2002 merger with Compaq. The Compaq-HP merger produced one of the largest project managers in HP Services’ three areas: consulting and Fortune 500 companies today: $80 billion in annual revenues integration, managed services (outsourcing) and technology and operations in more than 160 countries. Project manage- services. These units employ some 65,000 professionals. Mr. Kempf estimates HP Services oversees approximately ment at HP has grown and evolved with the company, says Ron Kempf, PMP, director of project management compe- 5,000 projects each year, ranging in cost from $50,000 to tency at HP Services. During the HP-Compaq merger, rep- several billion. Its robust set of project management resentatives from both companies sat down together to cull processes and training programs have allowed it to attract the best practices across its operations. “Our project man- and win big projects, such as managing Procter & Gamble’s agement methodology was robust on both sides,” says Mr. (P&G) IT infrastructure and other forms of business process outsourcing—the project, awarded in 2003, is valued at $3 Kempf, who hails from Digital Equipment. Since taking some of the best practices from its forerunner billion over 10 years and entails transitioning 1,850 P&G > companies, HP enhanced its project management discipline. employees from 50 countries to HP employee status. “A lot of our current project management processes came from Digital Equipment,” says Renee Speitel, vice president Scalable Plug and Play of HP services engagement office (PMO). “We combined the This formalized PMO structure has allowed HP to be agile, best practices of the Digital Equipment-Compaq organization scaling its far-flung global resources to best match the comwith HP into one umbrella.” HP’s plexity and size of a project. As a project management competency result of plugging into centralized HP PROJECT MANAGEMENT TRAINING & DEVELOPMENT resides in its Technology Solutions PMO resources, business units Group, where its Services division make swift use of company provides consulting IT outsourcing resources to pursue a diverse range Employees Trained 6,000+ and customer- services. of projects. “Our project manageSo how does an 800-pound ment goals and methodologies all PMP-Credentialed 2,500 Project Managers gorilla do project management? have to different HP busi(2,000 Within HP Services) Very methodically and with discinesses,” Ms. Speitel says. “It’s praline, but as Mr. Kempf explains, it tical and pragmatic with an eye Employees Earning PMP Credential Each Month 50 wasn’t always that way. toward managing the risks of a deal, whether that’s risk that moves Courses Offered 40 in a positive or negative direction.” Formative Years Number of Languages HP’s practices and methods all HP ran into trouble in the 1980s Offered 14 scale to fit the size, complexity and when it was bogged down by projrange of the businesses. For ects that ran late and over budget. Customized Certification Levels (top 3 levels include instance, HP follows one set of By the early 1990s, it established a 4 the PMP credential) guidelines for systems integration global PMO to combat inefficiencies

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INNOVATIVE PMO STRUCTURE

projects versus another for IT outsourcing projects. “For a $50,000 deal, you have to have a certain Having a centralized management structure to the project amount of discipline, but you don’t have all the rigors management discipline isn’t something readily found at enterprises, you do for a $1 billion project,” Ms. Speitel says. even those regularly practicing project management on a grand Digital Equipment held many of the core tenants scale. Hewlett-Packard’s (HP) centralized “top to bottom” PMO structure, says Renee Speitel, is only now emerging at other compathat currently comprise HP’s rigorous processes and nies, as are advanced levels of project management training. methodologies. Notably, HP’s Customer Engage“Project management often is more decentralized at other comment Roap evolved from that heritage. The panies than it is here,” Ms. Speitel says. “We use common practices Roap, a complex grid that shows the architecthat are deployed through our infrastructure, extending down ture of a project life cycle, incorporates HP’s Soluthrough each country. This is mirrored in our business tion Opportunity Approval and Review (SOAR) structure too, providing central management.” Ron Kempf, PMP, notes that the PMOs are in close processes to bring approval of new business and with HP’s PM Profession Council, which he implementation progress review in a timely manchairs. The Council has representation by each of the ner. The process encomes five areas: three HP Services divisions and from the PMOs in the g Opportunity Creation major world regions to constitute a seven-member team. g Opportunity Evaluation “We work with our workforce development organization to g Develop and Propose make sure we have the right curriculum in place and the right project management processes in place,” Mr. Kempf says. g Sell and Negotiate g Delivery. Some 3,500 project managers at HP Services worldwide the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® employ this framework to oversee an astounding 3,500 Guide) training, HP curricula includes customized active projects at any given time. “The project managers courses and HP-specific material. For core courses, the running the customer engagements are running a piece of company works closely with ESI International to develop business for HP,” Mr. Kempf says. “They’re responsible for and teach courses. Advanced-level project managers attend a week-long profit and loss, customer satisfaction and other areas, so we develop the programs necessary for the required skills to Project Management University (PMU), typically held in address these major topics.” About 20 percent of the com- about three to five locations annually, each attended by pany’s project managers derive from its Asia Pacific and about 150 employees. Mr. Kempf characterizes PMU as Japan PMOs with remaining concentrations distributed extremely intensive, featuring a selection of both HP and external speakers. Wrap-up competitions held at the end about equally between the Americas and EMEA PMOs. The PMO framework serves as guidance office and of each PMU event, such as “Jeopardy!”- or Olympiartner to HP project managers. “The people reviewing style games, are a hit with attendees. PMU and the overall and approving projects are the business managers. It’s a HP Services development program have received awards process we manage and run for the business to make sure by the American Society of Training & Development. they do the right thing,” Mr. Kempf says. So small projects typically go through a country-level THE PROJECT MANAGERS PMO, bying the need for RUNNING THE CUSTOMER regional or global PMO approval.

The Human Element >Much rests on the human element of training and development, Mr. Kempf says. In addition to the Project Management Professional (PMP®) credential and A Guide to

ENGAGEMENTS ARE RUNNING A PIECE OF BUSINESS FOR HP.

Ron Kempf, PMP, Director, Project Management Competency, HP Services, Palo Alto, Calif., USA

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>Mr. Kempf attributes networking events at PMU and the informal sharing of experiences among project managers as instrumental in fostering knowledge sharing and mentoring relationships. He notes that HP’s post-training follow-up surveys also shape its training content. Every PMU attendee is polled three to four months after the course to determine

what content they’ve put into practice, among other results. Other courses, such as how to address a troubled project, and HP’s latest course, Customer Program Leadership, help to elevate project managers to advanced levels. “The [latter] course is in pilot and typically will be offered as a three-day course allowing attendees to advance leadership

skills such as communicating with Clevel executives,” Mr. Kempf says.

Looping Back HP’s homegrown software applications are tied with applications such as Microsoft Project and Primavera TeamPlay under Scorpio, its project reporting system. Both Mr. Kempf and Ms. Speitel stress that capturing project information across various systems is essential, but believe the one-to-one and small group sharing of information—whether at training seminars, in meetings or online— greatly enhances HP’s knowledge base of what works and what doesn’t for project management methodology and training. “Knowledge management is an area of continued focus. It’s important to bring this knowledge back in and share it with others,” Ms. Speitel says, noting HP is starting to examine advanced ways to capture and leverage project data. “We struggle with how to make project information useable.You need search engines and meta data. You can’t just put it into the network and say the information is there,” she says. “So much of the knowledge resides in people’s heads. It’s how you get to that written form, or in mentorships, conference calls and other ways to share knowledge that counts.” The focus on training and its solid project management discipline has served to propel HP toward project success rates of around 70 percent, which starkly contrasts with overall average project success rates of around 45 percent to 50 percent for IT industry projects. “In our business we make or lose money depending on how well we execute a project,” Ms. Speitel says. “We know for a fact when you don’t have disciplined project management, you get into trouble and lose money. It all comes down to some fundamentals of not executing the discipline.” PM Marcia Jedd is a Minneapolis, Minn., USA-

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based supply chain and business writer.