Research can help you – Honestly! | Project Management Office

There’s a rich history between academia and industry that seems to start with the idea that “those who can’t do, teach.”  As someone who’s both “done” and “taught,” I’m a little conflicted.

Let’s start with expectation-setting.  Industry has the goal of making money, which usually motivates people to do things quickly.  Academia has the goal of “knowing” things – meaning that they are motivated to take a scientific approach to understanding problems, a process which can take a very long time, depending on the size of the problem.  Despite different objectives, both industry and academia make the correct assumption that information has value.

Consider the study commissioned by the Hawthorne Electric company to see what level of working light would make employees most productive. It’s a study that lives at the core of many project management office’s mission statements, though a very large number of PMO’s are unfamiliar with the work (http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/apl/69/2/334/).  The study revealed a productivity increase of approximately 10% with minimal increase in lighting.  It also showed a productivity increase with decreased lighting.  To the industry, this information has a clear monetary value (whatever the value of that 10% was).  To academia, the value is in the greater understanding of how people work – in knowing that when people feel like they are being watched, they are more productive.

The point is, who cares what the motivation was?  The output of the study is still the same, and still has value to industry and to academia.  Consider the Hawthorne Effect in relation to a project management office – an immediate value-add to an organization is simply being able to reliably say (thanks to a citation to research) that the very presence of a PMO has a positive impact on productivity.  Basically, it makes an organization more productive simply by letting the organization know that productivity is being measured.

Obviously I’m oversimplifying, and that’s probably not enough value-add to justify a PMO.  But it does justify getting started.  Many PMOs who key directly off of PM manuals try to go straight to being an office with oversight and control.  Why start there?  What I think Hawthorne is giving us is the ability to start scaling – let’s begin with a PMO that simply tracks and reports.  Show the value in changing the dynamic in the organization, and then start to scale up the PMO – both in terms of reach, and authority.  If nothing else, it lets the PMO start with a clear and simple message: “we’re listening.”

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