Maybe the biggest PMO trend for 2021 is regarding data where we expect real-time data transformed into information, available everywhere at any time.

Because we operate in such dynamic organizations, things are changing rapidly. We see PMOs at our clients that are challenged in providing the actual status about their program or project progress, risks issues, or financials.

The main cause is that many still report static data to their sponsor every other week, using Microsoft PowerPoint, Excel or Word templates. Doing so, by the time the sponsor receives and has read the report, the data is already outdated which could lead to surprises or misunderstanding between the sponsor and project manager.

For the project manager, it is often incredibly time consuming to draft these reports, especially if other key stakeholders also would like to have a report but in a slightly different format or system.

Using project portfolio management tools like our Digital PMO solution, it can easily resolve this challenge for both the sponsor, other key stakeholders and the PMO or project manager. Daily managing your planning, budget, risks, issues, resources, and changes in such a solution that automatically presents up-to-date information in real-time.

Microsoft Power BI

Using Microsoft Power BI it is very easy to visualize that data. For example, the Portfolio Dashboard provides executives with a high-level view of the overall status of the portfolio. Project status reports show the progress made, status of issues, risks, and financials.

With Microsoft Power BI the project manager can only share the link to the report to the sponsor once, and from this the sponsor can click through to always see real-time information. If you want to present the reports – for example to use offline – you can use automatic subscriptions so the reports will be shared on a file location or via mail, and even use templates that are branded for your organization and/or program.

Plan next steps

If you would like to discuss how real-time reporting using Microsoft Power BI could benefit you and your organization, then please get in touch with one of our consultants.

Microsoft Power BI is a cloud-based business analytics service that gives you a single view of your most critical business data. Monitor the health of your portfolio using a live dashboard, create rich interactive reports with Microsoft Power BI Desktop and access your data on the go with native  Microsoft Power BI Mobile apps. It’s easy, fast, and free. https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/features

In our previous post we shared the first PMO trend for 2021 where we expect more hybrid project approaches and that PMOs should be flexible in adopting and supporting an Agile, waterfall or a combination both being a hybrid approach. Here is our second item we predict for 2021.

 

Centralized and Strategic PMOs

Organizations often have more than one single PMO. Even within for example an IT department you will find decentralized PMO functions. We foresee these will start to disappear in favor of the centralized enterprise PMO.
The enterprise PMO should support the enterprise portfolio management which is aligned to the strategic objectives of the organization. Strategic portfolio management is better in prioritizing the right projects reaching those objectives with minimized business risks.

 

Within our Digital PMO solution it is very easy to create strategic themes and drivers. Combined with Power BI reporting this will give executives a good overview of the overall status of the strategic portfolios; the overall health, progress, adherence to budget as well as summarizing key performance indicators across all projects in the portfolio supporting the strategic objectives.

This year we will probably still have many uncertainties and it will be difficult to predict what comes our way. What we can try to predict is the PMO trends for this year. We think there a couple of items to be aware of for 2021. We will share them through a series of posts.

 

Hybrid Project Methods

Agile methodologies will continue to increase and expand. However organizations also find that running every project using Agile sometimes is just not working. Agile is not the holy grail they expected. If your project is straight forward and the goals are clear it may be better to use a hybrid approach using a mix of Agile and traditional waterfall. At Steerco we believe organizations should pick what works best for each situation, there is no good or bad.

 

PMOs should be flexible to the chosen approach and can be at risk of appearing as the ‘weakest link’ if they resist change and insist on maintaining traditional waterfall approaches within organizations undergoing digital transformation.

 

Our Digital PMO solution, using Azure boards, Microsoft Project or Teams Planner can work with any methodology, whether it is pure waterfall, pure Agile or a hybrid approach. It is also possible to link projects into existing agile software such as JIRA.