A review of Ken Burrell’s new book Learning lessons from projects: How it works, why it goes wrong and how you can do it better.

You could argue that if there was one single thing that you would expect PMOs to be good at, it would be Metrics. After all, PMOs often exalt the mantra that 'the PMO is the single voice of truth!'. 

But PMO analysts seem to be far less savvy about the metrics that are important in agile environments. Well never fear - we've pulled together the definitive collection of Agile Metrics for your performance indicating pleasure...

PMOs are a relatively modern phenomenon. The earliest known maps include cave drawings from around 16,500BC and even older maps inscribed on mammoth tusks. That's a lot of Lessons Learned that PMOs can draw knowledge from! In this article we explore what PMO people and Cartographers have in common, and what we can learn from the pioneers of map making.

When we talk of Project Reporting, it is tempting to only think in terms of the output of the process - the report itself. But the truth is this: whilst the Project Report is valuable, the process of Project Reporting is priceless.

It wasn't that long ago that the only training available to PMO professionals was Project Management training. And whilst PMP® and PRINCE2® (For the UK) may be useful to PMO people from a compliance and delivery process perspective, they do not cover the processes and competencies that are required in the PMO space. Fortunately several PMO certifications and courses now exist. We look forward to seeing the number of high quality PMO training offerings grow as the PMO finally comes of age.

Are you a manager or a leader? or Both? What roles does the modern manager need to master?

Thanks to the growing number of CRM systems with API interfaces, and messaging systems such as Slack that positively embrace the use of bots, more and more simple tasks can be automated. PMOs should be taking advantage.

How many times have you bemoaned the erratic, irrational and illogical decisions that have been made, causing projects to deliver late, dependencies to be missed and seemingly disparate projects to clash? Cogitative Biases effect projects deliver and PMO success. But they can be mitigated and controlled. Here are six to watch out for. 

The US Senate has unanimously approved the Program Management Improvement and Accountability Act.  PMI are pretty excited about the bill - they have been vocal about their endorsement of the bill. But what does it mean for Project Management professionals?

The problem with lessons learned reports is that they are usually sterilized to the point of being meaningless.

Call3 is a new way of sharing lessons with a simple premise: When project managers initiate new projects, they must call three nominated people and have a 30 minute conversation with them about the project. 

We are in an age where we can (and do) gather increasing amounts or data about our organizations, projects, suppliers, markets and people. These sources could be used to make better data-driven decisions about how we deliver projects and seek to extract value from them. But despite the obvious potential, few PMOs have made progress with tapping into this pool of data.