strategic PMO

UMT360 Blog

Gartner’s Market Guide For Strategy Execution

Gartner’s recent market guide on Strategy Execution Management Software advises that any PPM leader interested in driving business transformation invest in tools to help them more effectively manage strategy execution. So what does that mean? Gartner asserts that strategy execution management requires a solution that focuses on “supporting the dynamic portfolio management needs of business strategists, steering ...

New tools and techniques turn project management into strategy execution

Gartner recently published its Market Guide for Strategy Execution Software. If you’re a Gartner client, you can access it here. The report speaks to the “execution gap” that many organizations are struggling with, and the main culprit seems to be a reliance on traditional tools and processes that keep project success rates stuck at around ...

For today’s strategic PMO, real business transformation begins at home

What do people really mean when they talk about business transformation? And why do we seem to be hearing so much about business transformation within the context of project and program management? Perhaps a few insights from this year’s Gartner PPM & IT Governance Summit in Orlando can help to answer those questions. The future ...

Gartner Summit 2016. Stop Managing Projects. Start Orchestrating Investments!

We’re excited to be participating in the Gartner PPM & IT Governance Summit once again this year. The Summit will will be in Orlando from June 6-8. If you plan on attending, please do stop by the UMT360 booth and say hello. The theme of this year’s event is Results-Driven PPM: Leading Change and Delivering Value ...

Looking to do more in 2016?

The end of the year is a time to connect with loved ones, celebrate the holidays, and make resolutions for the New Year. For PMO leaders, it’s also the perfect time to take a step back and assess the effectiveness of the processes you use to manage project and program investments, while also assessing their ...

On A Journey To PMO Maturity

This fall, the UMT360 team participated in several industry events featuring PMO leaders presenting thought-provoking keynotes and informative breakout sessions. Attending these events always gives us a chance to learn, along with an opportunity to speak with PMO leaders from all walks of life. It also is a great reminder that no two organizations have exactly the same needs or ...

An Oasis For PMOs In The Desert

The UMT360 team, along with PMO leaders from around the world, will be in Phoenix from November 8-11, 2015 for the PMO Symposium. The PMO Symposium is one of our favorite events of the year. It’s where hundreds of business leaders gather for a behind-the-scenes look into the proven strategies and practices that drive success for some of the ...

The Winds of Digital Change Are Howling

This year’s Gartner PPM Summit was held just outside of Dallas, TX, in early June. One of the highlights of the event was the standing room-only presentation by UMT360 client Frank LaRocca about how PMOs need to adjust their methods to adapt to a changing business environment. The wild local weather that passed through the area just ...

It’s time for the PMO to focus on the big picture

No, the UMT360 team didn’t come up with the theme for this year’s Gartner PPM & IT Governance Summit. But we certainly could have. Because from our perspective, the event’s theme — Thriving on Digital Chaos: Innovation, Agility and Collaboration — sounds exactly like what we’ve been telling our clients for years now. It’s time for an Enterprise PMO. We’ve long ...

Managing Investments – That’s Your Real Project!

We met a lot of folks at the Microsoft Ignite Conference in Chicago last week. And while everyone we spoke with had unique and specific challenges, one common thread ran through our conversations. Most organizations we spoke with used Microsoft Project Online or Project Server as their PPM tool, yet still wanted a more efficient and effective way to manage their projects. ...

The Enterprise’s Biggest Challenge – Bridging the Planning & Execution Gap

A recent UMT360 webinar attracted about 200 project management professionals interested in learning more about how today’s PMO can bridge the planning and execution gap. Judging from the responses to our poll questions during the presentation, nobody doubts that there is a gap. But it’s clear that many organizations are not quite sure what may ...

Digitalization And The Changing Role Of PPM

I am an avid proponent of the transformative effects of technology. Indeed, digitalizing traditional PPM is core to our mission of helping organizations bridge the gap between strategy and execution. That’s why the recent Q&A with Gartner “Thriving on Digital Chaos” caught my attention. It’s an interesting read, one that touches on the disruptive impact ...

Mapping the Road from Investments to Value Realization

(Part five of a series on the forces helping to drive a tactical to strategic transformation of the PMO.) Effective planning and execution of strategic initiatives requires that processes, technology and implementation all be synchronized with company strategy. Organizations that ignore these dependencies risk not being able to implement even moderately complex programs. Project Gantt ...

Linking Resource Allocation To Strategy

(Part four of a series on the forces helping to drive a tactical to strategic transformation of the PMO.) For many companies, the allocation of resources is driven from the bottom up. Allocation decisions are often disconnected from business capabilities, are commonly based only on one year of data, or are guided by a simple ...

Prioritization – Making The Right Tradeoffs

(Part three of a series on the forces helping to drive a tactical to strategic transformation of the PMO.) A recent Gartner report provides some interesting perspective on the impact that prioritization has on today’s enterprise. Gartner reports that a majority of CIOs agree that non-prioritized, competing projects and programs are an obstacle to implementing ...

The Power of Regular Portfolio Reviews and Dynamic Reallocation

During a recent UMT360 webinar covering How to Become a Strategic PMO (see archive here), we found that only 1% have regular dynamic reallocation reviews via automated processes. Another 39% have regular reviews, but require manual, time-intensive efforts to collect and standardize data. UMT360’s message to PPM practitioners is that this is their opportunity to take ...