From traditional to agile is THE most important theme in projects in 2021.
The PMO Company has been working on improving project management at companies for 15 years. Since 2019, our focus has shifted to providing the best project professionals for project execution. Nevertheless, helping to improve organizations regarding the better execution of all projects remains an important component of our services. That is why we want to gauge which themes are relevant annually. And for 2021, you can find the results to date below!
Transitioning from Traditional to Agile/SAFe as the Most Important Theme in 2021
It is clear that the Agile movement is continuing. However, switching over is not easy. This is evident from the many interviews we have conducted. Two things stood out:
1. Without management mandate, attention, and commitment, it will not take off.
2. A cultural shift is also required: more leadership and responsibility are expected from team members.
focus areas are on our radar. We organize workshops and training sessions to give extra attention to these. We often approach it as a two-stage rocket: first, understanding and mandate from management: we are going to change the organization and let it work more independently; what exactly does that mean?
And subsequently, we focus on the personal development and culture of the individual team leaders.
It must be clear that making mistakes is allowed, taking initiative is appreciated, and doing things differently (to see if it can be done better or faster) is encouraged!
A big surprise for us: Project tooling / applications emerged as the second most important theme for 2021 from the survey!
And why is that a pleasant surprise? Because since our founding in 2006, we have promoted the vision that automating project tracking and communication in a central online project environment would make the difference in the future. And that future has now arrived!
The PMO Company is a partner and reseller of Changepoint's Daptiv (now incorporated under the Planview umbrella), a partner of Planview P5.nl (featuring, among others, the very cool LeanKitfor very large Agile programs), and we are a reseller and implementation partner of ClarizenWe even carried Atlassian's Jira as a partner and still possess the necessary expertise regarding it.
In short: questions about tooling or considerations regarding conducting a tooling comparison (RFI): we are happy to share our knowledge!
The third most interesting theme is Project Methodologies : that is where The PMO Company began its journey! In 2009, we asked our then-colleague Jeff Monnee to take the lead in a structured approach to achieving a mature project organization. This approach has many similarities with P3O and covers all topics relevant to a project organization at the operational, tactical, and strategic levels.
And based on these levels, it was subsequently detailed for each topic which operational matters need to be elaborated to enable unambiguous control: roles and responsibilities, which processes are running, but also which approvals are required, etc.!
The diagram illustrates how we approached this. Clear and very comprehensive at all levels (operational, tactical, and strategic) and for all topics.
We have also developed a PMO Maturity model based on this, which allows you to effectively determine which aspects you can further professionalize.
Companies looking to standardize their project approach are welcome to pick up our models, processes, templates, and knowledge!
Drop a message or share a like and we will get in touch:
Sharing knowledge = Multiplying knowledge!
And here they are! The results of our survey so far!
