Creating the project office 18. This is a book about improving organizational performance by implementing a project office system that develops project management as a core competency and thus adds value to the organization. A project office consists of a team dedicated to improving the practice of project management in the organization. The improvement in organizational performance is achieved by obtaining more value from projects, making project management a standard management practice, and then moving the organization toward the enterprise project management concept | 148 Creating the Project Office Together they established a plan. Conduct a series of three meetings with the group management staff that would result in a prioritized plan of record realistically staffing in-plan projects and listing future projects in an out-plan. Start with a vision statement develop criteria for selecting projects and apply to all projects. The first meeting was set. The forward-looking vision was distributed in advance. The day before the meeting the group manager reported a change in his travel plans abroad that prevented him from getting to the meeting. The meeting was held anyway and almost resulted in disaster. How can we discuss the vision without the general manager present Feelings of powerlessness emerged but were quickly squelched by the facilitator who pointed out that the business team now had an opportunity to express their own dreams and concerns which could then be reconciled with the general manager s. The group chartered a subteam to suggest categories and criteria for project selection. The project office consultant facilitated several subteam meetings. Individuals brainstormed criteria on Post-it notes and put them on the white board. The next exercise was sorting them. Categories emerged not out of discussion but naturally from people concurrently moving sticky notes around the board. They ultimately labeled the categories as sustaining business new business and must-do projects. How much should each category be weighted Strong feelings emerged that sustaining projects were desperately needed to resolve current problems and keep the company in business. They gave that category a weight of 50 percent. New business came in at 30 percent and must-do at 20 percent. The must-do category recognizes that legal environmental or safety issues preempt resources from other projects. Developing criteria within each category was a struggle until they came to realize at the facilitator s unceasing prompting that a core set of criteria .
