Project Manager / Project Portfolio Manager / Programme Manager / Head of PMO - who to hell is who ?

This article has been originally published on 15.04.2014 at LinkedPHPers blog. Due to problems with Blogspot solution it has been moved to LinkedIn articles area.

On a LinkedIn groups for Project Managers I have found quite several interesting discussions regarding the roles of Project Manager, Project Portfolio Manager, Programme Manager and Head of PMO. The main concern that is quite repeatedly raised is what each of these roles is responsible or accountable for. I have commented on several on these discussions, but I thought it might be useful to publish at least quite a short post in here accompanied by some example.

But first let's try to make

some definitions of the Project, Project Portfolio and Programme

From my point of view the main differences between them are:

• Project - by definition is finite activity with specified budget, scope and timeframe that aims to deliver specific deliverables. In this article Project will be the smallest part (eventhough in reality it is of course possible, or even needed to be divided into phases, tasks, roles etc.)
• Project Portfolio - it is the set of projects, that are not connected to each other. Projects in Portfolio does not rely one on another and do not have to (but may) share the resources
• Programme - it is also set of the projects, but these project, on the contriary from Portfolio are connected to each other by having the common goal. They do not have the common deliverables, every project has it's own structure - but the deliverables of all the projects in the Programme are to deliver the main Programme goal.

To describe the organization of the PMO and responsibilities in it I have created

an example of organizational structure

that I will describe and work on in the next paragraphs:

Let's imagine we have a company that drives 13 projects grouped in 3 portfolios and 2 programmes as shown above.

The portfolio projects, eventhough are managed several of them by the same Project Portfolio Manager, are completely unconnected - e.g. Project A1 from the picture is implementation of some system for customer AAA, while the Project A2 is delivering custom-development services of completely different system for customer BBB. What I mean these projects are completely different in scope / budget and timeframe - the only connection between them are the facts that they are managed by same person and they appear on the same time.

The programme projects are connected to themselves in scope of the programme, hence they have common goal - which might be e.g. preparation of the new product line - project X1 is preparation of the CRM in sales, while X2 is preparation of the CRM in service solutions (while both aims to the common goal - creating a complete CRM solution that will be a flagship product for the company for the next years). Each of these projects are managed (on the project level) by their Project Managers, which reports on the project level to the Programme Manager of specific programme.

Reporting lines

What is important here to mention and to remember that in fact we have in here 2 report types:

• reporting on the project issues level
• reporting on the people management issues level

If we consider the reporting lines in the PMO in the people management level - the structure is very simple. Every Project Manager, Project Portfolio Manager and Programme Manager reports to Head of PMO. Hence Head of PMO does not manage (in this, quite an easy example :) ) any project, portfolio or programme - his role is pure People Management role. He's responsible for tasks such as personal development plans, dealing with team conflicts, maintaining project lessons learned procedures etc.

Once we get to consider the project status reporting lines - things gets a bit more compliceated or structured. In case of project portfolios Project Managers manages the project teams (which btw are not part of PMO - the project teams in the same time reports on the people management level to their line managers of specific Business Units they come from). In case of programmes, the Project Managers reports to the Programme Manager in scope of their projects, while they manage the project teams in the same manner, as PMs in project portfolios.

The question that might arise is to whom Project Portfolio Managers or Programme Managers reports to in scope of the project issues (we already said in scope of people management issues they report to Head of PMO). As they are "sold" to run projects that has different sources, sponsors, steering comitees, that most likely comes from different BUs in the organization - they report on the project level to them. This means they report on the project level "outside" the PMO.

Questions that might arise and how they should be handled using the reporting lines

OK - let's go a bit to some practical aspects - let's try to analyze some of the questions that can arise during business-as-ususal life and determine who should answer them:

• Steve Braun (Portfolio Manager A) wishes to go for a project management training - he should go to John Smith (Head of PMO) and John should cover the training from PMO budget, as he's responsible for people development in the PMO Business Unit (while having his own budget for PMO)
• Member of Project Team A1 needs to get a day off - he should get the approval from Steve Braun (Portfolio Manager A), as he will be unavailable for the project managed by Steve, but the final approval for that day off should be signed by member' BU manager (as he's responsible for people management tasks for team members)
• There's a problem that materializes the risk in Project C2 - the problem should be reported to Bill Murray (Portfolio Manager C), and Bill if there's a need of incident report, should report this incident to the Sponsor / Steering Committee for Project C2 (he might inform John Smith about such a situation, but this is not the direct reporting line)
• There's a problem that materializes the risk in Project Y2 (part of Programme Y) - Yens Dickens (Project Manager for Y2) should be reported and if there's a need of incident report - Yens should report this incident to Steve Fielding (Programme Manager Y). Then Steve might be needed to escalate the problem according to Risk Management Plan prepared for the whole Programme (and possibly inform Head of PMO - but only on the informative manner).

Who is the Sponsor for the Projects in Programme ?

This question might arise and according to the organization described the actual Sponsor for the Project that has been initiated within a Programme is the Programme Manager. As the Programme should have it's own budget - so it acts as some kind of a "hat" for all the projects that are driven within a Programme. What is also important - within a Programme, a Programme Manager has the ability to create Projects as long as these projects fits in the Programme budget and delivers the deliverables, that are needed to fulfill the Programme goal.

In many cases Programme is in fact a rolling activity - the budget is defined for specific time (e.g. a year) and each year the budget is negotiated and agreed for the next year. Also on such yearly meetings the level of goal completion is analyzed and the decision whether the Programme should be continued or not is made.

Is the Head of PMO only an organizational / administrative role ?

At first it might look this way - but in fact a Head of PMO is quite a senior role. In theory he does not drive the projects - but still this role is responsible for PMs development, as well as maintaining such aspects like PM Best Practices, Lessons Learned or standardized project management procedures that are utilized in all the projects and programmes in the company. A person in Head of PMO role is also a people manager for highly experienced employees - which means he needs to have a strong authority based on his knowledge and experience.

This means that eventhough he does not manage projects directly, he needs to have really strong knowledge and experience in this area. He also needs to be able to coach and properly asses people working in the PMO Business Unit.

I personally find such a person also as a firefighter - a fast-reacting task force that is able to help any of the Project or Programme Managers in case if they are in trouble. Such a person should be able to step into the project and suggest (but not actually execute) the correction actions to put the project back on track.

Which roles can be mixed ?

Generally the landscape presented is created for at least medium organizations. For larger ones it can be even extended / multiplied by either additional Project Portfolios or Programmes, as well as "separated" projects with assigned Project Managers.

However it is viable also for smaller organizations, where the roles in the Portfolios and Programmes can be shared by same people. Generally it is very free how do you design sharing of these roles - e.g. Steve Braun (Portfolio Manager A) can have in his portfolio also Project Y2 (which is the part of Programme Y). In the same time George Leeds (Programme Manager X) might have different projects portfolio do manage.

I think the only limitation in this scope which I would suggest to follow is that the Programme Manager should not be a Project Manager for one or more projects in his programme - e.g. we should rather not put Steve Fielding (Programme Manager Y) as Project Manager for Project Y1. Such a situation might lead to a conflict of interest, while Steve needs to control the project he's actually running - so in a way he should control himself. In quite a complex assignment during Programme Management the fact we have 2 escalated points of control is for sure a healthy situation, that should not be ruined.

Having in mind the limitation about Programme and Project Manager (for the project inside the programme) it might be unclear whether such a limitation does not apply also for Head of PMO and any of his reports (Project/Portfolio/Programme Managers). I think it does not. We should remember the Head of PMO is a People Management role - the reporting employees of PMO does not report to him on the project level. This basically means it is not the PMO Head's responsibility to actually control the projects - they are controlled by the Sponsor and Steering Committees for these projects, that contains people from different BUs than PMO. And in the same time it is in fact quite healthy to have a manager that does similar job, as his reports, as this builds a real connection between them and allows manager to know his team much better.

Final words ?

Well - I have to admit at the beginning I wanted to make this short, in fact just a few paragraphs explaining the picture you can see at the very beginning... I haven't succeeded with "a few paragraphs" for sure and touched many (maybe too many) topics in here... But I hope you managed to get to this point and I will be really very grateful for any comments.