There is a ground breaking effort to target business management leaders with project management information of specific interest to them. A book is being pulled together on Organizational Project Management (OPM) that aims to create knowledge about the interfaces among projects, programs and portfolios, how projects benefit the ongoing operations in organizations and how strategic objectives are attained through projects.

What’s your opinion; does the industry need this book?

Do you have something to say about this topic? If so, see OPM for more details.

We are in the process of developing the business plan for submittal to PMI in MAy. IT’s pretty exciting work, actually, starting something new - new faces, new challenges new fun!

THe VCPs that go live in 2009 will be free to PMI members until January 2010. Ours will go up in October. If you have a marketing interest or background, we could use some help, particularly in making it an international community. So far everybody is US. You would have to be a PMI member, sign an NDA, give up IP to help out. LEt me know if you are interested - jim@jsloane-pmp.com.

What is interesting is that I’m not seeing a lot of discussion about OPM3. I wrote about it a little on my blog. There is a pretty active OPM3 Sig on Linked In that everyone should join and participate in. I have seen a little from Lynda Bourne’s group about it. But not much else. What’s going on here? This is huge. We have the ability to dramatically improve the way organizations execute their strategy. Many of us have spent years on this effort. And yet,

chirp…chirp..

First, the OPM3 discussion on LinkedIn is great. There is valuable discussion within the OPM3 community there about the theory and use of OPM3. Everyone who is interested in improving the quality of the standard, the value of the certification, and their own knowledge should be participating in the OPM3 Linked In discussion. But we are talking to each other there. Linked In is not a marketing vehicle.

I have heard lots of complaints that the market is not familiar with OPM3. People say that Organization’s don’t understand the value and don’t see the benefits. I have talked to executives who are waiting for higher adoption because they don’t see enough about it.

Who are we waiting on to start these conversations? We need to start these conversations. Those of us who have invested years of our lives to this practice and the development of the standard need to start talking about it. PMI has case studies showing the benefits. I am aware of three major organizations that have used OPM3 as part of a larger improvement effort to great results. We just had a major release done, and with the new Portfolio, Program, and Project standards it is impressive.

We need to stop just talking to each other about this work, and starting conducting conversations where business executives can find it. The internet is an amazing thing, you can build brand and spread knowledge rapidly with limited effort. If you search for my name (Dennis Stevens) in Google I come up in 7 of the top 10 positions (I am not the gardner or the redefining craft guy). That’s just from writing on the Internet and in some business magazines.

Where are we talking about the standard that is searchable on the internet so an executive who comes in looking for OPM3 sees this as a real? Who is having meaningful successes and publishing them to business magazines and websites? We don’t need to sit around and wait for PMI to drive the marketing effort. Marketing today can be done by community. We need to be on Twitter, writing for business magazines, blogging, and commenting on other blogs about the value of project management in executing strategy and the way OPM3 helps you get there.

You can post here if you don’t have a blog. Drop me an email and I will get you set up. Let’s start to drive some content out where it can be seen and raise the awareness of the OPM3 standard and organizational project management maturity in general.  Please help grow OPM3.

To do list:

1. Join Linked In, Join the OPM3 SIG, and while you are at it send me a LinkedIn invitation.

2. If you are blogging about OPM3, let us know so we can add you to the blog roll here.

3. Drop us a note or add a comment to this post when you blog so I can publish a list of relevant blog entries for everyone to review.

4. When you see a great post or article or case study, let us know. We can do a digest of the OPM3 posts and create a hub for the people who help organizations improve their project management maturity.

5. Comment here on what else we can do to improve the visibility of OPM3 and other Organizational Project Management Maturity efforts.

Let’s start talking about OPM3!

The whole Organization Markets Business Team was there too: Ralph Zingh, Larry Bull, Cindy Anderson, Jason Dolfi and Lisa McCann. They presented their strategic initiatives:

• Position PM as a strategic business driver
• Position PMI as global resource and authority for implementation and improvement
• Integrate within PMI
• Be customer centric, responsive to organizations
• Demonstrate product leadership
• Provide operational excellence
• Being the source for ‘The Business of OPM’

Craig Killough, DIrector of Practitioner Products also spoke. He seems to be a forward looking guy. We talked about the need for a PM video game, and he was receptive to that.

We talked about how the OPM3 credential and the standard relate, shedding some light on what should be on the exam and in the standard.

We met a lot of volunteers working on other standards, MAG and the Virtual Communities that SIGs andColleges are being converted to. I had thought that the chapters were also being converted, but that was wrong. Chapters stay independent as ‘Incs.’

Tim and Dennis were there too, I hope that they will blog about the meeting too.

Jim SLoane, OPM3-CC, PMP

Jim:
So this entrance exam, is it to screen out weak applicants? (Tougher questions.) Do we want people with consulting experience, or will that be covered in the course, to the extent that we want them knowledgeable?
Questions about the standards – just to check they know principal (principle) concepts? OR standard details?

OR is it just to make sure they have a good round knowledge of the PMI standards?

Will any questions be weighted heavier than others?

Nancy:

Well, I think they’re all excellent questions.  We want it to be a screening mechanism for OPM3, so they know what OPM3 is and how to apply it rather than asking what it is in class.  They should have familiarity with the standards and how they apply in the business world.  We don’t want to have to teach them OPM3 in the certification class, or have them ask OPM3 questions since that slows the class down….we want to screen those people out.

We’re not trying to test them on whether they’re a good consultant and the certification class will not teach them to be a consultant because they should already have that skill; they will have to prove that in the experiential requirement process.  We can teach them more sophisticated ways to apply OPM3 using ProductSuite once they’re in the class…..but they’ll need that basic knowledge to build on.  No questions will be weighted more than others.

Think about the certification class you were in, and what knowledge you think people should come to class with so they can spend their time learning the ProductSuite tools. Let me know if you still have questions.  (You’re questions are so good I should put them in the discussion portion of the BlueStep site!)

Thanks!
Nancy

These are due near the end of the month, so if you are writing, and good quality questions are hard to do, get busy!

Nancy didn’t say how many, so I’m going to try for 10 by the due date.

Jim SLoane, OPM3CC, PMP, CM

The PMI conducted OPM3 users Forum was held Sunday, October 19 in Denver. Attendance was not as high as registrations showed. (I checked other sessions and found the same thing. I guess a lot of companies decided to save some money and cancel attendance, due to the world wide financial melt down.)

So we had about 10 people (users) in 5 different groups that were given a business scenario to trace through OPM3 second edition - establish business objectives and then provide an abbreviated business plan for improvement, using the second edition. Everyone got into their business cases and provided valuable feedback at the report out.

MOst teams got pretty much the same results as the first time PMI did this in Seattle 2007. Only the forum attendee evaluations will tell how much the users got out of it. I think PMI should take a more creative approach next time they try to provide users with an ‘orientation’ or ‘use session’ for OPM3. How about case study from assessment through implementation. Maybe comparing the Online tool and PRoductSuite. OR just use ProductSuite for a case study.

MAybe my pessimism is showing. It has been 8 years since the first release Of OPM3.

I also attended PMI sponsored ‘thank you’ sessions, where we received kudos from Greg Balestrero and Brian Weiss. Brian is a god send, he gets it and is working to get OPM3 out there. I forget his title but he and Larry Bull are working together to move toward market accweptance. Clearly, PMI has made a comittment to making OPM3 a serious contender in the organizational maturity improvement.

All that remains is their published plan.

Despite the fact that there were almost as many PMI people as Focus Group attendees in the room, the exchange was open and honest. And we posed some tough questions. Brenda Comfort asked point blank - how many assessments are in the PMI database? Dan Copeland replied ‘about 100′. Yikes! And Claudia probably did most of those, so what does that leave for the other approximately 95 certified assessors/consultants?

Enough about that though, we and PMI need to look forward. It’s clear they are dedicated to supporting the user community going forward, with marketing strategies. Cara of PMI is rolling out a contact campaign, targeting potential users of OPM3, with some followup also planned.

Larry Bull was taking copious notes and said he had some incredible feedback from us that he will work into their plans.

Saadi Adra asked why the initial campaign was only being launched in north America. Good question!

I have left out a lot of details, and hope attendees will add their ‘Insight’ (there you go Greg) to this initial post.

Jim Sloane, OPM3-CC, PMP

Jim and I got invited to participate at the ProductSuite Focusgroup session 9th and 10th of Setember. I think, it would be interresting to compile some recomendations and suggestions in this forum.

How can PMI generate more value for the tool as well as for the certification?  What should PMI do about the standard OPM3?

What are your painpoints, sugestions and expectations?  Do you have an interresting case to share?

Don’t let us miss the oportunity this new channel offers us.

Best wishes from Brazil

Gerhard Tekes

I would like to share an experience with OPM3, a bit off the regular tracks.

If I blindfold you and ask you to find the door, will you? Sure, you will. But, you will spend unnecessary amounts of time, money and effort. You will hurt yourself and others. Your efficiency will be really bad.

Implementing a PMO, Project Management Methodology, Program Management or Portfolio Management Methodology (after 2008 update), ….     Without doing FIRST an OPM3 evaluation, an OPM3 analyzes, an OPM3 snapshot (Who created that term “Assessment” really liked to make life more difficult, increasing the barriers for NEW) is doing exactly this: Trying to find its way blindfolded.

Our company, 3PTA, is a small consulting company in Brazil, less then US$10M turnover and working with a wide range of clients in South America, Europe and Middle East.
One of our clients, the business school from a Federal University in Brazil asked us to support during 4 month the implementation of PMI methodology in an ongoing academic project, scheduled for 5yrs.
The project was won in a public bidding process financed by the national Secretary for Public Security (Police) and has as a goal to transform the Military police, who acts in Brazil as ostentative Police force, in a “Learning Organization“. The bidding documentation defined, that the winner had to use formal project management methodology as described in PMIs PMBOK2000/2004.

In a first meeting, we stated that none of the 3 Sponsors had ever heard about PMI, nor had anybody any idea what project management means nor had they any real interest in implementing more methodology as they were forced to show in the reports. Additional, . in Brazil we have a particular language problem, because in Portuguese, the design, the technical project, is called project as well.
As one of my students studied at the federal University and worked as well on this project giving IT-Support, we decided to create a PMO and to define methodology, with him working as my assistant during implementation. After 3 month, he should become the manager of the PMO.

QUESTION:  How to implement in 3-4month methodology and a PMO in an organization not only absolutely ignorant about Project Management, as well as little interested, if not hostile. Little interested because the pain points are so old, they learned to live with them, cultural aspects - don’t rock the boat-, and most of the consultants feeling being “to good” for to get involved with administrative tasks and procedures. Most consultants in the project were very “brainy” highly qualified scientist, hostile to administrative tasks and rules and the proper sponsors were only interested to fulfill the contract and mostly unavailable.
We did a preliminary scope statement development interview with the sponsors, support staff and 15 of the 60 involved internal consultants and most defined as success criteria that we should not impact on their day to day work. One defined a PMO as responsible for to maintain the Intranet (He was the Professor responsible for the IT support and looking for outplacement).
Definitely a challenge.

We decided to scope the methodology, the processes and procedures to get standardized, focusing on the actual pain points and looking for big bang for the buck.
And we decided to use OPM3, without telling them. Not telling them for not to create more fuzz and for to be able to workaround he hostility and barriers. Most interviews started with, “I got some coffee, want one as well?” and had a really informal character. In the preliminary scoping, we identified 42BPs, which would make a difference for them. We scoped it down to 34. After the assessment, focusing on resource allocation, Project Domain and Standardizing, we found that the business school and it’s administrative staff, without ever having heart about PMI, OPM3, PMP and whatsoever, already had 47 of the 117 relevant capabilities, already had some templates and procedures known and used by most of the collaborators most of the time.
We designed the processes based on what they already had, reducing the barriers for the “New”, started training for the missing capabilities, in the truth, not missing, but undefined, everybody doing it, or not, in his own way. The IT support team set up the virtual space for the PMO in the Intranet, defined some tools (DotProject, Xoops, …), we implemented a rigid scope change control together with the officials from the military police (client’s representatives) and a simple configuration management.
Within 10 weeks, methodology was defined, most barriers were broken down, team development started and with 3month and 23 days, we passed the PMO to its new manager - what caused them, not to prorogate our contract.

Now, after 11month, we received a first feedback, asking for more, The idea is taking the PMO to Dept. level and to increas the number of BPs, including perhaps some portfolio BPs. Perhaps this time, we tell them, that we do an OPM3.

OPM3 is much more than an assessment,
OPM3 is the start.
OPM3 can help you to break down barriers, get less “foreign”-Processes.
OPM3 helps you to cut down significantly the effort and cost when you want to start with Project Management.