I did two presentations — the first on the rise of the EPMO and the second on Project Juggling — Practical Advice for the PMO.  My goal was to offer useful techniques and perspectives for clients at level one or two on the maturity scale (project juggling) as well as offer a perspective of what life at level 5 might look like (the EPMO).  Obviously the risk of doing either presentation is some people will ding you for being too basic and some people will ding you for being too fluffy, but you can’t win them all.

I’m leaving for London tonight to present at the European Summit.  It will be interesting to see how it goes.  I’ve found that PPM practices are generally more mature in on the “other side of the pond”.  I’ll also hoping to have some discussions on benefits realization with some knowledgeable folks while I’m there.  For whatever reason the topic has seemed to be more top of mind outside of the US, but I think that will be changing as we learn more about the “new economy” that we’re all facing.

I have many books I recommend to people and many books I value but if I actually tell the cold, hard, brutal truth there are only two dog-eared books on my book shelf; Rapid Development: Taming Wild Software Schedules by Steve McConnell and The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook by Peter M. Senge, et al.  Both these books serve one and only one purpose for me.  They help me to be (I hope) a better manager and leader for my teams.   I don’t manage any more so 5 years from now I might say that I have a new set of dog-eared books but I think there’s some value in sharing why these books earned a place by my side, when I was actually doing the work I now just write about.

The real answer was they were my bullwark against getting lost in the noise and in the minutia that all projects have a tendency to drag us down into.  My strength as a leader was my big picture view, my ability to hear what wasn’t being said, and in turn to say what no one else had the courage (or the utter foolishness) to say.  If I was too lost in the weeds to see what was happening around me then I wasn’t offer my one UNIGUE contribution to the project.   In my post The Decreasing Value Case for Project Management I discussed the fact that many enterprise architects are now saying that this is their job on a project (seeing the forest for the trees) but I know if I were still leading projects it wouldn’t be a role I would give up easily.

The books that keep us grounded and able to lead are generally specific to our personality and our circumstances.  One of our clients, Penny Dent, shared with the attendees of her presentation at the PPM Summit, that her book was Fish! A Remarkable Way to Boost Morale and Improve Results.  She said she given it to all of her project managers and from the sounds of it most of the company has probably read it by now. 

So check out Glen’s post.  There are some great books there and I’ll be adding a few off the list to my own bookshelf, but I think it’s time to remember that our job description is P (project, program and portfolio) Manager for a reason and that it’s time we started investing an equal amount of our mental energy in improving the M side of the description rather than just the P.

With that said I’d love to hear what books serve as your anchor points.  This is one list that will never be definitive or authoritative since it’s all about what speaks to you, but I still think there’s some value in sharing.  I look forward to seeing what books the rest of you actually keep close.

1) We had a terrifically engaged audience.  I’ve been speaking at one conference or another for just a few weeks shy of 13 years and hands down I felt that the attendees where there because they really cared about running a program or a PMO or because they actually managed a portfolio.  The Gartner events folks set up quite a few peer networking events and based on my read of the audience there was ample opportunity for attendees to meet and share with others.

2) Everyone wants to be a program manager.  Seems reasonable since we all stood up on stage and said program management is the next big thing BUT there’s a problem — real program management the way Gartner defines it shares very little overlap with project management.  In fact I routinely tell PPM Leaders that only about 20% of their PMs will ever make it as program managers.

One interesting outcome of this interest in program management is that it’s given me a new goal.  I’m sure of the 20% — it’s based on natural selection and skills cultivated from early childhood — but I’m now wondering if there’s a way to increase that percentage just a little.  Or maybe a better way to think about this is what do we need to do to clearly and cleanly identify our future program managers and equip them for success.  Definitely something I will be adding to my research agenda for next year.

3) Personal power vs position power seemed to be a background issue in some of my discussions.  This topic is worth at least a half dozen research notes.  The problem is most of what I want to say someone can misconstrue.  For example a simple statement — do what YOU believe is right for your project, program or company and ask for forgiveness later, is good advice unless you’ve completely misread your management and your company culture.  If you have misread your company you get fired — if you haven’t you get promoted.

Of course this is a hard lesson to learn.  Even I screwed it up royally once and this was after years of nailing exactly how much I could get away with.  In my case I made the mistake of trying to do my job (as I wanted to do it) and NOT covering my boss’s posterior first.  It was naive and arrogant on my part and I paid the price.  I only bring this up because it’s one of the reasons that PMOs and project management adoptions fail so often the first, second and even third time they’re tried.  360 degree servant leadership (with a passionate drive to get results) is the only approach that really works, but sometime it’s easy to take your eye off the ball.

More thoughts from the summit tomorrow.

In 2009, tremendous interest from the CXO level in better control of their investments has caused organizations that could barely spell PM to decide to create some form of centralized or enterprise PMO.  Whether these PMOs will change the outlook for success since they’re being sponsored by the CEO is still open to debate.  My guess is if the PMO is focused on portfolio management this trend will end up being both positive and long lasting.  If the PMOs that are being established are focused on project management execution I think they’ll be a flash in the pan.  For any of you attending the first Gartner PPM & IT Governance Summit starting tomorrow; I encourage you to go hear Penny Dent present her journey toward a working centralized PMO.  She’s a terrific speaker with a lot to share and I know you won’t be disappointed.  She’s also living proof of why I think truly centralized PMOs tend to only work at the later maturity levels.

For those of you who won’t be attending our get-together, let me pose the question:  “Do you think a centralized PMO can be effective before an organization has developed a sense that they are a project oriented company?”

From the reports I’ve gotten from the folks about Twitter usage at our other Summits it sounds like using Twitter helped great a dynamically connected environment during the conference.  Obviously I’m not sure how it will work and we’ve got fall-backs in place (raising of hands will still work for dynamic polling and microphones will still be available for questions) but the more of you who come twitter enabled the more we can see if it helps.

Now, for all of you Luddites out there, yes it’s really safe to set up an account.  Yes you really can use it only when YOU want and for your purposes, and yes your reputation will still be intact if you don’t update it every day.  For those of you who want a test account to follow where you wont’ have to endure too many tweets about cups of coffee consumed and the weather I’ll offer up my own which is Nimblepm.

I’m so excited that I’ve planned both mediums into my panel discussion. So given all my prior entries commenting that PMs are probably the most Luddite group on the planet the question is does anyone out there have twitter set up on their phone and would you actually use our interactive polling during the conference? I hope so BUT as a project manager by training I have a contingency plan in place – paper, pencils and microphones will be in place for questions and we can still use a good old fashioned show of hands for polling.

For those of you how are interested and haven’t signed up yet here’s the link