Post COVID PMO – “Simulation” Project Management Has Arrived, Are You Ready?
Requested to present to a group of PMO & CIO leaders who asked post COVID what is the future of project management and the PMO world and is the PMO or project manager necessary. The future is not going back to project management pre March, 2020. In simple terms, what is the need for the PMO? The project management future for those leaders who want to get on board are simulations. Need to start training managers to use simulation tools to create scenario analysis which improves upon probability to create a roadmap, improve risk assessments, and overall utilize predictive analytics.
Streamline projects using simulation to define the “what if” mentality. Start grasping the uncertainties, interactions and relationships thus moving out of the pre COVID thinking “rear view” analysis to the more predictable project outcome future. Simulate more accurate forecasts to quickly ascertain impacts of change to project behavior. Most important bring together as one unit many organizational processes to quantify solution value project drivers. Goal makes the project manager more proactive within the intellectual decision-making process.
Entered into a discussion of how to structure the new simulation project team. Evaluate temporal behavior to work within task dependencies, resource capacity, rework loops between goals. Within the program plan, will require modeling & scenario analysis. Seek areas of design requiring clarification to locate relationships & real-life conditions via baseline models incorporating sub projects. Explore the optimum scenarios and ask “what-if” multiple questions to forecast cost, duration, risk of all scenarios. Final outcome - evaluate all key work processes and provide quick modifications. The organization process improvement identifies potential consequences resulting from a poorly developed project plan and make improvements up front.
The PMO and project management roles and responsibilities are a process improvement change in the making. Performance indicators via simulation can be quickly calculated and reviewed. Project variables to avoid issues are now controlled to design desired behaviors. It is now time to create the virtual project model to view many options and then decide on the strategic plan to move forward. Define the future problems before they reach the project manager to view the complexity within variables and how each interacts to avoid critical risks. What are the highest level dependencies and how does each exist with the project phases while keeping an emphasis on the deliverable. Incorporate hypothesis based solution model to build parameters and develop a probability set of random variables.
The project simulation goal is a clear view of the project work process and the ways to modify. Start using simulation project techniques within the SDLC for example Monte Carlo simulation. Evaluate two or more alternatives with the Comparison of Operating Alternatives. Utilize Simulation & Optimization to evaluate multiple situations having many levels of complexity to select the best result. Risk Management Simulation to create the best mitigation plans to reduce the severity of disruptive or unanticipated events via predictive models.
Want to learn more, feel free to reach out before the train leaves the station….