its monitoring efforts to increase accountability. It rolled out a reporting framework with
weekly, monthly and quarterly updates designed to keep projects on track.
From a monitoring and controlling perspective, “the project management group has
really become the backbone,” Ms. Earley says. “What we’ve seen is very open dialogue with
our business partners. This helps us address issues as they surface so that we can get ahead
of them before they impact project schedules, budgets or different factors.”
The effort is paying off. In 2014 and 2015, 95 percent of projects had a green status, with
the proportion of red-status projects tumbling to just 1 percent of the portfolio—a drop
of 65 percent from 2014 to 2015. Reflecting the PMO’s thorough resource and estimation
management efforts, the percentage of projects that closed according to plan jumped from
55 percent in 2014 to 88 percent in 2015.
SPECIAL OPS
Even with a push to standardization, the Navy Federal PMO understands not all projects
are alike—and some may benefit from less traditional delivery methods.
“The PMO started with a one-size fits all approach to project delivery. We realized this
really wasn’t the most effective way to work with our business partners to deliver value
frequently throughout the project life cycle,” Ms. Earley says. “We’ve since tailored our
delivery practices to introduce both agile and incremental delivery practices, and that’s
really helped us improve our delivery within the portfolio.”
The PMO relied on alternative delivery approaches for 35 percent of the entire project
portfolio, which is a key driver to the 200 deployments slated to close by the end of 2015.
PMO leaders aim to increase that figure in coming years.
Other areas of focus going forward include a skills inventory initiative to help improve
talent management, and a more robust focus on benefits tracking and delivery.
Mr. Hills, the PMO’s sponsor, says he’s most proud of how staff across Navy Federal
accept the PMO as an integral part of the organization and rely on its capabilities.
“Time and time again, this organization has demonstrated its value, to the point where
people are asking for the PMO. They will not start projects unless there’s somebody from
the PMO actively engaged in the delivery of their project.” PM
Navy Federal’s IT projects included
mobile applications, debit-card usage and
access at branches around the world.
Reflecting the PMO’s
thorough resource
and estimation
management efforts,
the percentage of
projects that closed
according to plan
jumped from
55
percent in 2014 to
88%
in 2015.
