E
TIGERS WITH TEETH
Abid Mustafa is a director of corporate programs
for du Telecom, a telecom operator and PMI
Global Executive Council member in the United
Arab Emirates. He is the author of In the Age of Turbulence: How to Make Executive PMOs Successful.
cess or failure of EPMO leaders hinges on delegated
executive authority.
This is best illustrated by looking at executive
decision-making during project steering committee meetings. If the CFO, chief commercial officer
(CCO) and chief technology officer have a dispute
over a project element they cannot resolve, the
decision is usually deferred to the CEO. And if the
CEO is preoccupied with other things, the decision
is delayed. Then the project comes to a grinding
halt and the company ends up wasting money,
time and effort.
To avoid such project delays, an organization
might make some executives subordinate to others (placing the CCO in command for all project
work, for example). But in practice, this does not
work for two reasons. First, executives tend to
be consumed by their own domain activities and
rarely have enough time to devote themselves to
intensive project work. Second, they usually aren’t
comfortable interfering in the respective domains
of their peers.
Granting the EPMO leader the authority of
a particular executive, say the CCO or COO, to
deliver projects would not work because that
authority is limited to a particular domain. In the
event of a dispute, the decisions will inevitably be
referred to the CEO and the project might come
to a halt.
The way to mitigate this shortcoming is for the
organization to empower the EPMO leader with
final project power, especially the ability to interfere in all executive domains and make decisions as
and when required.
By ensuring the EPMO leader has the right level
of authority, the EPMO will be adequately poised
to deliver strategic projects, which by nature are
extremely cross-functional and complex. Otherwise, it will become a toothless tiger and be
regarded as irrelevant by the organization. PM
Executives across a variety of organizations are
increasingly realizing the importance of enterprise
project management offices (EPMOs) in bridging
the gap between strategy and execution. EPMO
leaders are playing a central and evolving role in
this phenomenon.
“Over the past five years, we’ve seen a significant
trend toward interest and adoption of an EPMO
leader,” Donna Fitzgerald, research vice president
at Gartner, said in a statement. “The majority of
EPMO leaders currently have the task of providing
visibility and decision support to business execu-
tives. What most of them haven’t been asked to
do is actually get something done. We see that
situation changing as the concept of the EPMO
becomes increasingly accepted.”
In the past, very little attention has been devoted
to understanding the type of skills required by
EPMO leaders to make the transition from report-
ing to successfully aligning execution with strategy.
This is a major hurdle that must be overcome.
POWER WITH PURPOSE
Apart from the most obvious skills, such as sound
knowledge of project management methodologies,
business acumen and domain knowledge, the suc-
For an enterprise project management
office (EPMO) leader to be truly effective,
executive authority must be established.
BY ABID MUSTAFA
the PMO
