REFLECTION – LEARNING LAUNCH

Challenge & Selection  As part of making our company future ready the business is embarking on a multitude of different  improvement projects to analyse and improve or replace existing processes with better ones. One of  these streams is to implement a Project Management Office (PMO) structure.

I believe that the Learning Launch approach can be a great way for the business to fast track the  implementation from a very early stage.  As a result, I have selected this tool for my final assignment.  My aim is to build an understanding on how we may apply and approach the utilisation of this tool as  part of our upcoming roll-out sessions.

Application  The business endorsement has been made to develop existing services into a Global PMO (GPMO)  that will be responsible for the holistic establishment of governing processes, tools and performance  measurement metrics etc. Following on from the GPMO, multiple Regional PMO (RPMO) are to be  established in each of our main office locations.

Part of the PMO establishment is to understand the existing capabilities within the business and the  respective locations.  It is already known that these are of varying quality and hence a broadening of  offered services will be required at each location specifically.

The programme for the establishment of the PMO considers tasks for the above already as well as  allows time for an initial kick-off meeting with the respective stakeholders.  I will encourage with the  participants at any such to apply the learning launch process.

Insight   The plan is that by utilising the Learning Launch tool the team and other participants can verify  identified PMO services to be offered.  However more importantly the team needs to establish a  joint and agreed order of priority for items to be established and implemented for the GPMO and  even more importantly within the pilot RPMO in order to make them successful.

Approach  Our company has started a journey around the Design to Innovate or Design Thinking approach over  the past months.  Numerous trainings as well as workshops with clients have been undertaken  already.

However, the experience around the application of underlying methods will vary greatly within the  implementation team that is responsible for the PMO rollout.  As such the first step will require to  identify any gap areas within the team.  Further the first kick-off meetings have started to take place  and as these are representing the “What-is” step we will have to prepare for the actual roll-out of the  GPMO and the RPMO.  I will suggest to the implementation team that the Learning Launch is  considered as part of the initial implementation which currently already foresees monthly peer  reviews with the ability to adapt.  Further the roll-out programme already considers for the necessity  to utilise intel gathered from the first locations to enhance and improve the service offering for the  subsequent locations.

