The Future of PMOs and How to Support Informal PMs

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Galen Low: Hey folks, thanks for tuning in. My name is Galen Low with the Digital Project Manager. We are a community of digital professionals on a mission to help each other get skilled, get confident, and get connected so that we can amplify the value of project management in a digital world. If you want to hear more about that, head on over to thedigitalprojectmanager.com/membership.

Okay, today we are exploring the world of the informal project manager and what the role of the project management office becomes in a world where a majority of projects are being led by folks who have never received project management training. 

Joining me today is Bruno Morgante, a coach, mentor, speaker, and also the VP Head of Global PMO at Adecco Group and a member of the board at The PMO Leader.

Bruno, thanks for joining me today!

Bruno Morgante: Thank you very much for having me today, Galen. It is a pleasure of being here. 

Galen Low: I'm super excited to have you on here. Bruno and I have been chatting back and forth before hitting record here. And Bruno, in one of our earlier conversations a few weeks back, we were talking about this notion of informal project managers, like this notion of projects being led by folks who don't consider themselves project managers at all.

And you brought in this juicy idea of the fact that there's some people out there, maybe there's a lot of people out there. We're like, is being a project manager actually a real job at all? So I thought I'd just kind of like use that as a thread of steel to dive in, but also, you focus so much on PMO and the benefits of that and how to sort of do that in a modern way.

And I think they kind of have a relationship. So I wanted to dig into that basically like the PMO and the informal project manager, and I guess informal project management while we're there. But I thought maybe I'd just get stuck right in and maybe we can just give our listeners their bearings. 

What do we mean when we say informal project manager? What is an informal project manager? And beyond that, why are informal project managers important to consider when we're designing the future of project management? 

Bruno Morgante: Okay, well, I heard the term informal project manager referred in different ways over these almost 20 years of career, network PMs, informal PMs, people that are not PMs but they play the PM role and whatever.

Now, who they are usually people that have not had a formal training in project management. And they find themselves managing a project. Sometimes I make a joke about that saying, well, it was the first person passing outside the room when they were looking for the one to run that initiative, they say, okay, Mario, you are the one, we take you.

But you know, sometimes it's a little bit extreme, but it might be true. To be fair, in my career, I had to deal a lot with the informal project managers and I had many of them. And let me tell you the two extreme cases, because I later in the chat, we, I will refer to the two cases frequently. So I had one guy who was a young engineer, an SME at the company, and he absolutely wanted to become a project manager.

So he was young, skilled, he was good. And we saw as an organization, I was part of the decision process back then. I was leading a PMO and we saw that as an opportunity for him to enter into the profession. So he started managing small projects and he used that as the way to enter into project management.

Now that's one extreme. Okay. It's a good extreme. Now let me tell you about the bad extreme. Once I was speaking with this person and she was referred to as the program manager for these big program. It was a multimillion dollar program. It was like 9 million euros. So it was not peanuts. And like a week after that program was approved, I approached her asking her about the plan.

I said, I don't need the detail plan, but at least a high level plan. This is a big monster that you want to deliver in one year and it's impacting the whole organization. Show me the plan. And the answer was, Oh, I have no plan. And that is when I said, what do you mean you have no plan? Well, we do things in a different way here.

We'll start, let's see. Well, that is a scary I'm sure if you have 9 millions, you don't want to give them to someone that has no plan. So you see, these are two extreme cases, but there is a lot in the middle. And these are potentially the informal project managers. Now, why is important to consider them for the future is because they are here and they do exist in plenty of companies and we will have them in future as well.

So they need to be considered when you are designing something, a new organization, a new setup, or the way your PMO potentially operates. That's definitely important. Yes. 

Galen Low: It's funny because so many people in the circles I travel in, they are project managers exactly for that reason, they are, we call accidental PMs, where they were Mario, right?

Walking by the room and someone said, Hey you, come in here. Would you like to lead this project? You're organized, you communicate well, there's nothing to it. Like just help deliver this big project, small project, whatever. We're giving you full accountability. Go. Some people go down that path on that one extreme, right?

Where you mentioned where it's okay, I'm interested in this. I want to use this path to become a project manager. And then that other extreme is interesting because, I sometimes forget that it does happen. That person that you pull into the room might be like, Yeah, that's okay I'll take your nine million dollar budget, and we don't need a plan we'll just go for it, don't worry about it.

And in both scenarios, there's so much to learn and so many different directions to go in. And I started thinking about, a lot of my folks, they're looking at the PMP, the certification, the project management professional from PMI, and that is definitely something it's it's not day one, right?

You get your PMP after you have experience, and in some ways, it sort of sends a message, I guess, to them, whether right or wrong, that you have to learn on the job, and then you get to this point where you can study, and then get your certification, and it just kind of bakes all the stuff that you learned along the way. 

But it kind of sends this message that you have to learn it the hard way with almost no support by making mistakes, sometimes with a, 9 million euro budget. 

Bruno Morgante: What I can say on this is the good example that I mentioned. As a fact, it is one of the main entrance in the project management work for a lot of people, including myself. I don't remember if I told you this story Galen, but when I started my career, my corporate career, so it was roughly 20 years ago.

And I was supporting the IT director of that organization. It was the country director for Italy. And I was doing, several things. Officially it was a business analyst, but I was doing several things until one day, roughly nine months into the job, the guy tells me, Bruno, I believe you will be a good project manager.

Like me, project manager? Why? I didn't know. And I didn't have good experience with PMs back then. But then he says, yeah, you are very precise. You always plan things. You get things done. You deliver. You will be a good PM. And he assigned me to my first small project. And that was for me the way to enter into this world, which I quickly understood.

It was great for me. And I will never leave it. I know. So, it is a way for a lot of us, that's the right way to enter. But it's important that once you are in, you, well, on one side, you need to be willing to be there and to play that role. And of course, to learn by doing then by studying, but it is important. It's part of the process and it's a necessary part of the process. 

Galen Low: It makes total sense. And we hear so many stories of just sort of being brought into the fold and, for better or for worse, I had this question. I'm like, is it good or bad? But, I think your stance is it can be good and it can be bad and everything in between.

But I came into this being like, okay, this is kind of, new. More and more projects are being run by folks who do not consider themselves project managers. But you just kind of shone a light on the idea that actually this has been happening for a long time now, right? Like it is one of the sort of main entrance ways into the career.

But I guess like when I'm looking at today, and there's so many projects going on right now, and there's so much transformation happening. Technology is moving fast. Businesses are being forced to be very nimble. We had the pandemic that just changed the way that businesses and organizations work and that the sort of necessity for projects.

I guess my main question is if these informal project managers who've got no formal project management training are running a big chunk of the world's projects right now, and those projects are being successful, then doesn't that mean that something like a PMO, like an enterprise PMO, or the project management office is becoming irrelevant?

Bruno Morgante: I don't think so. I don't think so. And let me first say something about the fact on why probably we see it more now than 20 years ago. Well, I think one of the reason is that more and more companies entering into this project mode, the project approach, and we'll talk about that later on. So definitely it's something that was already happening, but we see it more and more.

And about the impact of a PMO into that and potentially the coexistence of the two, these are two different things. So let's do a step back. Project manager is there to do one thing, which is to deliver their project. There are different ways, methodologies, ways of working, approaches. Fine, but in the end, the one thing that they have to do, it is to deliver their project and to be successful, hopefully.

Now, a PMO, it is working on everything that is around that concept. So you might want, and again, there are different types of PMOs, different levels, different maturity levels. Now imagine that you have a PMO that is a portfolio management offices. So they are managing a portfolio of projects. They are helping the organization, understanding what are the right initiatives aligned with their strategies and so on.

Well, of course they are defining the project management framework of the company as well. So in simple words, how do we run projects in these organizations and they might have different approaches, a project tailoring in place, hopefully for that PMO. And all of that, it goes then into having a common way of working, a common approach, a common language, a common way of reporting your projects.

And all of that is very well perceived by the organization. Independently, if the one that is running then the project and delivering the project is a professional PM or an informal PM, so that surrounding is still helping the project being successful and the organization obtaining what they want to buy those projects.

So I don't see that becoming irrelevant. They are anyway part of the game. It's more interesting to see how potentially those PMOs have to adapt in a way to support these dualism, like the professional PMs and non professional PMs, that is definitely something that some PMOs have to change.

Galen Low: I love that word support, because I'm, the way I'm thinking about it is, at least for me and I know for others as well, like you're that informal PM who's been asked to run this project, probably from your perspective, you're like, okay, just this one project. And in a lot of cases, they're like, it's just this one project.

It's my first project. I'm not even a project manager. I don't need a framework. Let's just get this done. And I imagine that's like a common thing where there's a lot of projects happening within an organization that might have a really good PMO and a really good framework, but the person delivering the project like doesn't think that they need that framework.

And so it's like this, it's this mindset of I'm not a project manager. If I was then, then I'd probably need all these tools and frameworks and like methodologies. Then I'll go see my friends at the PMO, but I'm just doing this one little thing, this small sort of transformation piece. I'm the sort of department owner, program owner, and we just need to move this ball from A to B.

What do you do about the folks who don't even ask, like the projects that are just going under the radar, getting delivered, and then they're successful. And everyone's well, we didn't even really need to have a framework. It's still got done. Like, how do you support that? 

Bruno Morgante: Yeah. It is one possible scenario.

In my experience, most of those are actually not going to be successful. And not because there is something fundamentally wrong, but very frequently you see those small little pieces of transformation, those are small projects. And sometimes they are big, like the nine millions that I mentioned before, in which when you start the conversation with these people and you ask the basic questions, I'm not going at any higher level than the starting point.

And you ask, okay, what's the purpose of this project? They don't know. What's the scope? What are you going to deliver? And they don't know. And if you don't know that, you will never be successful. I mean, I had, again, sounds like a joke, but I had a conversation with one of those informal PMs, which once told me, why do I have to manage the budget of my project?

That is fundamentally wrong. You have to. When you go on vacation, do you manage the budget of your vacation? 

Galen Low: Yeah, absolutely. 

Bruno Morgante: You do. I hope you do. Well, yeah. Well, that's exactly the same. When you have a project, you have to understand how much money do you have available and how are you going to use this money for?

And you see, now, in the eyes of someone that doesn't look into those things, maybe that chunk of transformation is successful. That is potentially a topic for another podcast, like what's the definition of success? And here is where we can, if the definition of success is to get something done, well, potentially one day, eventually they will.

That's not my definition of success. So it really is something to consider. Now, they are not always those cases. Of course, you also have other cases. One of the main challenges that PMOs have when they face this conversation, it is to explain why something is required. And to provide on the other side, in this case, to the informal PM, what's in it for them.

So if you use this framework, it's not just about, well, this is the framework. You have to follow the framework. Why? Because I say so. That doesn't work. Explain why this framework is going to support them. One of the things that I see happening in a lot of our projects, when the PM is not aware and we explain you need to follow this path.

No, I don't want or I don't need it. And they go. And then at a certain point, somebody, which is another part of the organization is coming. And let's say IT security is approaching them and say, how come you are at this stage? You didn't speak with me back then. And now there is no way you're going to proceed with this project until you do ABC, because I'm not going to allow you to. Well, it helps if when you approach the PM at the beginning, as from a PMO standpoint, you explain, Hey, look, if you follow this, it is because you are not alone.

We are an organization. There are a lot of moving parts and you need to know how to interact with everyone to ensure that your project in the end is successful. So you don't want to find these roadblocks later down the stage when everyone is excited about you running your project and well, suddenly you realize you have to rework it a lot.

So again, it's another example, but I think it helps to understand that. 

Galen Low: I really like that because, I mean, explaining the why is sort of the antithesis of what a lot of people think a PMO is or is going to do, right? I think a lot of folks expect that you must do it this way because we said so, and I don't know if there's so much of the why it's an educational body, more than it is a, like a policing body.

And if it is policing, it's because there's a good reason. Because you don't want to get to step 9 of 10 and realize you can't go live with this thing because, you haven't gone through the compliance process. It's just sort of like risk or success management. It's funny because as you're talking, I was like, the most common thing I hear from folks who come to me who don't see themselves as project managers and they see me as a project manager and they're like, I'm doing this thing.

It's not like a big project. I'm not someone who does a Gantt chart or I'm not someone who can do a RACI matrix or, an Ishikawa diagram or whatever. That's not me. I'm not a PM. But can you help me run this project? And I think what was really interesting was what you said about, and I think the whole project management world is sort of coming like we're recentering back on that.

What is success look like? What is the goal? What is the purpose? There's these simple-ish questions that are not project management questions that we normally think of, like people come to me and they're like, don't ask me to do any like qualitative risk management. I don't think I'm going to be able to do that.

But it's not these tools that are going to make or break your project. It's these core elements of what is its purpose? What impact do you want it to have? And I'd say even some project managers forget to ask themselves that question. So I really like that kind of like coming back to why it's like boiling it back down.

It's not a PMO of, really complicated techniques that you know, are really confusing that you must use even though you don't understand them. It's actually like the basics, the mindset. 

Bruno Morgante: Yes, and I think I am sure there are a few PMOs out there which do have probably, like these a hundred and something documents that you have to, checklist that you have to fill out and to get the sign off before you are able to deliver your project. In some scenarios, in some industry, it might be relevant, but in I'm sure for all of them, if they would approach those things, just asking the question, what's the purpose of this document?

Who is going to get anything out of these step? This easily reduce 50% of the stuff that you do. Now that is a difficult exercise is a long exercise, which involves the whole organization and very frequently leading a PMO. You are not in a position to run that because you face potentially other people saying no.

My stuff is absolutely necessary, always. So it's a difficult conversation, but definitely it is a way to apply a sort of simplification, which in the end, it could help the life also of the informal PMs, but also of the, let's say, professional PMs. Absolutely. It's the whole organization that will benefit out of it.

Galen Low: I like that. It's like the sort of it owns the culture of projects at an organization. I think, even me a couple of years ago, I'd say Oh yeah, enterprise PMO means, that they've got all these PMP wielding sort of project robots, lined up in the office there.

And then when there's a project, we grab a PM off the shelf and they go in and run the project, cause no one else could do it the way they do. And then they're going to have the whole portfolio of projects sort of organized. And it's just this, it's this machine that is like process driven and like tools driven and techniques driven.

And more importantly is like a sort of like that concept that they protect projects because heaven forbid we let someone who's not, a professional project manager run a project. That's kind of like the mindset that I would have around an enterprise PMO and I know a lot of folks in my community kind of share that they're like, it seems like this rigid, like gun for hire project manager because no one else can do it right.

This is, when you want it done right, you bring in a professional. And don't get me wrong, I imagine that there are some criteria in any PMO to be like, no, this one needs probably someone who's got a lot of experience, and this one can be an informal accidental PM, like that's okay. But even just that mindset, like of what a PMO is and does, it has this, in the circles I travel in at least, it has this sort of brand, almost this like negative connotation. Something that you actually use in some of your work, you use this term human centered PMO. 

And I'm like, I'm picking up on this as you're talking. I'm like, okay, I kind of see it, but I'm wondering if you can kind of explain what that means to you and like how the concept of having a human centered PMO like plays into this idea of supporting informal project managers.

Bruno Morgante: Let's see what usually you mean with that and definitely what do I mean with that is the concept of looking into the human side of things. What does it mean? Now, it goes into those that still a lot too many people know, calls them soft skills. They are absolutely not soft. They are the necessary skills or the human skills and that's why the human side. 

They, this is like to be successful in a project, independently, if you are a professionist or an informal PM, you need to master them. You need to know how to communicate efficiently. You need to know how to engage your stakeholders and how to deal with them. You need to listen and listen, which means listen to understand, not listen to answer. And all of that, you need to, involve people.

There is one thing that a lot of people have asked me in the past, which is about what's the one thing that differentiate a great PM from a good PM. It is these. And all of that is necessary. Now, I will always say, as a PM, you need to master the skill of gathering people around the table.

And now sometimes it's maybe a virtual table, let's say, but gathering people around the table and ensuring that even those 5, 6, 10 people that potentially are all reporting to someone different in the organization that might have a different interest, and they might have be from a different background, different culture, different companies.

Sometimes, you have external members as well. You need to bring all of them together and you need to ensure that these people agree on a way forward. And this is difficult. It's not easy. And this is not necessarily project management. These are skills that are necessary to be successful. So that is definitely a way in which a PMO can support the successful delivery of projects in an organization, which is about supporting the PMs and the people around into that.

Why I say the people around? Because sometimes this type of conversation, it is necessary to be done also with the sponsors. I'm sure you face the projects in which the sponsor, a) didn't know that person was the sponsor of the project. B) didn't know what it means to be a sponsor. So sometimes you need to do this type of training to them.

So to ensure that they understand what's their role that they have to play for the success of the project. And if you have a project where the sponsor says, what are you talking about? Then stop that project as soon as you can, or at least pause because you need to ensure that there is a very important level of clarity on that.

Otherwise, that's not going to end well. 

Galen Low: Absolutely. I've definitely been in multiple of those projects where, yeah, it was okay, this person doesn't even know that they are the sponsor. Let's maybe pause. But I love that idea of like, how to be a good sponsor, how to be a good stakeholder within its ecosystem.

As you're talking, I'm like, my brain's going, okay, human centered PMO. Does that mean that people working in the PMO have a human focus? Yes. Does it also mean that it helps project managers, approach those human skills that are going to help them be successful? I'm like, yes. Okay. That's interesting because I don't know if a lot of people are running their PMOs that way.

It's just educate on the human skills. And then I love that notion of educating like a sponsor or like in the agency world, we always talk about nobody trains a client to be a good client. So of course it's difficult. They're probably doing this, for the first time or they've ever been, yeah, sort of told what is expected of them. 

And I love that notion of okay, yeah, sometimes the PMO will get involved to, help a) make sure the sponsor knows their sponsor and b) help make sure they know what that means. And then let's go, because otherwise we're going to, have that project on the far extreme, the negative extreme from earlier, where, you don't have a plan.

You get to step 9 of 10, you hit a big roadblock. You have to go back to square one. Yeah, nobody wants that, so. 

Bruno Morgante: And you know what, Galen, sometimes sponsors, they find themselves in that position exactly like Mario found himself in a PM position. So it's well, there is a project in that specific department and someone up there wanted it.

And for that reason, now, well, you are the sponsor. You even don't know what that project is about. Now, of course, if you have been a sponsor before, if you are in that position and you document yourself, so, okay, let me understand. You have a conversation with your PM, being this an informal or professional PM, and then you go, but if you just say, ah, okay yeah, I'm the sponsor and you end there, yeah, it's probably not going to end particularly well.

Galen Low: Yes. I love that. 

I want to come back to sort of this, like how to support the informal project managers themselves. I mean, we're in a world now where generative AI is very prevalent, very well adopted and accepted. There's other emerging technologies out there now. And I'm just thinking about that thing I mentioned earlier where, someone comes to me, they're like, I can't be a project manager.

I don't even know how to do a Gantt chart. And they're not necessarily, you don't need to know how to make a Gantt chart in order to be a project manager. That's they don't have that sort of correlation, but that's kind of the mindset. But now we've got these tools out there. You know, Gen AI, we've got these large language models.

We've got these tools that can sort of help professionals do their job. I'm just wondering what your take is on the role of generative AI and some of these new emerging technologies? What role do they play in setting an informal project manager up for success? 

Bruno Morgante: They definitely would help. Let's say my view on that is that in general, I mean, AI is here.

It's here to stay. We know it. And it's a good thing. I want to believe it is good for all of us and that we will use it in the right way. Now, when we look at the specific example of how that a PMO could potentially use those tools to support an informal PM, there are plenty of them. Like I can imagine about we always say, and this is something that you will read everywhere in the PM community about, well, those tools are going to help project managers getting rid of the boring stuff, like doing a project plan, for example.

Okay. That's true. Now, also in a PMO, you could easily set up a chat bot that will in somehow help with all those questions. Like why do I have to manage the budget of my project? Well, then ask it and you will get an answer and that answer will definitely help you understanding that. But then there are a couple of other examples where I see that AI is going to definitely help PMOs and PMs.

Which you will see in a moment that they actually bring to a big question mark. So let me take two. These are two of my favorites. One is something that I discussed already like a year and a half ago. I think it was my first interview about how AI was going to impact the project management and PMOs, clearly one way that I see a big benefit soon happening.

And I know some companies are already using that is the portfolio prioritization and the project success prediction. So based on all those data, based on the situation in which we are and the dependencies and the resources and the money available, blah, blah, blah. Does it make sense to start this project or this other one?

And maybe these projects make sense to start, but not now, maybe in three months from now. That is very helpful. Now park it for a moment. The other one that I just read recently, it was, it is part of one of the AI trainings of PMI. They made this very good example about the lessons learned.

Why is a very good example? Because lessons learned is always something that it's very frequently a boring activity that project managers, even if informal, they have to do at the closure of the project. And, you go through that, what was good, what it was right, what should we change in future, blah, blah, blah.

Now, if you are lucky in your organization, you have all those lessons learned in the same template. Anyway, they are parked on a shared drive and nobody's going to look at them ever again. Okay, good. Now they make this example off a project organization, setting up a tool, which is basically taken all of them.

And now you have easy access depending on the type of project, you can get to what are the lessons that we can learn from these, I don't know, 10 years of experience. Brilliant. Beautiful. Now, the first case, and this case, they go to the same point, which is my bigger question mark, which is the mindset shift that is required from an organizational standpoint. Because if you are the person in charge and you decide to run this project, and I am your head of PMO and I'm telling you, hey, Galen, okay, but look, the data are telling us that actually, we should start this other one and not your project. 

If you don't listen to that, you're going to say, no I'm the boss. I decide. Well, then you have invested all that money and effort for nothing. And the same is for the other one. Lessons are telling us that we should actually do A and B and not C, but then if you don't follow them, again, it's a wasted investment.

So it is important to consider that anytime we are considering the introduction of AI. It needs to come together with a potential mindset shift, which is not a PM level. It's not a PMO level. It might be at the organizational level. And this is something that we will face over the next few months in a lot of organizations, I'm sure.

Galen Low: It makes total sense. And I've been there in a number of organizations where one year, the mission is to get better data. The next year, we're looking at that data and we're like, it's going to help us make great decisions. And then the year after that, we realized we didn't actually follow any of the advice of the dad, because we're like, you can't tell me what to do.

We've been doing this a while. I love that idea of a chat bot, right? It's like, okay, listen, you're going to run a project. I know you're not a trained project manager. You're going to be a sponsor. I know you've never been a sponsor before. Here, let us get you set up with this. Ask it anything like, it's tapping into our database of lessons learned. 

We've trained it on all of our sort of, retrospectives. It's got a lot of stuff in there, just ask all your questions along the way, like sort of arming them with that mindset. And then, we've got this idea of the AI helper, but I think you're exactly right.

The tipping point is it's giving me advice, but I'm still making the decision, which unfortunately still also means that without the right culture, people can still make the wrong decision and it's not helping the organization in any, significant way. 

Bruno Morgante: Yeah, absolutely. 

Galen Low: I thought maybe we could dive into some of the tough stuff.

The tough questions around PMO and informal PMs. I wanted to swing back to this thing that, we were talking about in a previous conversation about sort of like project management as a, real profession. And I guess, from a certain perspective, some would argue that supporting non project managers, these informal project managers, kind of betrays the job security of project management professionals.

Does the recognition of informal project managers kind of exacerbate the problem that project management is viewed less and less as a real profession these days? 

Bruno Morgante: Interesting. I think there is a big chunk of people that potentially would consider that. And this is a problem that we face since quite a while in the project management world.

It's the idea of everybody can be a project manager. And in a certain sense, project manager is a basic role. Anyone could potentially manage a project. When you go on vacation and you organize your vacation, well, you are actually managing a project. It's a small one. The same is when you organize your wedding or I don't know, a birthday party.

It's a small project. So we all do it. But then I think it started to become, when you look at it in organizations, again, if it's a small project might make sense, but then when it's something bigger, you probably want to give it to someone that has been there, that has a certain level of knowledge and training.

I think of good analogy is the one that you have with the do it yourself shops. Like when something gets wrong at home, you don't always call a specialist. If it's a minor thing, you fix it yourself. But then if you need to, change the complete electric wiring of the home, maybe you want to call someone that does it as a professional and the same is, with anything else.

So, I don't think it is actually, let's say, negatively impacting the fact that's not a profession. It is about understanding that we might still be, and potentially in future, we will still be with the two roles, with the two realities. And again, as I said a few minutes ago, I still do believe that it is a great way for people that are interested into entering into that as the right way, as a good way. Like it's great. 

The problem that I see is when on the other side, the person doesn't want to, they don't care. They don't want to, it's I don't want this. But then they find themselves into that. And that is difficult. But that would be difficult with any other profession it's not only with project management.

Galen Low: Actually, yeah, I was thinking that the same conversation, especially in a world of like generative AI. The same conversation is happening to the writing profession, to design. If an organization buys Enterprise Canva license so that everyone can make graphics, are they saying that designers shouldn't be a role?

Probably not. They're probably just saying sometimes we need to produce some graphics for social and it's not the kind of thing that needs our design team. Our design team is going to do deep creative brand stuff, sort of, they're going to push the envelope. And in the meantime, we do have some of these tools that help non designers do design work.

So I'm like, okay, yeah, you're right. And the DIY thing I love too, because, fundamentally for me, I think it's risk. I'll change the light fixture, but I will not rewire my house because I think the risk is too great that I'd do it wrong and something would blow up and catch fire and, the end. And it's funny because thinking back on it, a lot of the time people like, oh yeah, like I couldn't do project management.

I don't understand like risk management, gets too complicated. And yes, it gets complicated. It's a very deep rabbit hole, but I think fundamentally it's it is still that general skill and mindset of a human to be like, yeah, that seems like a risk, like maybe we should plan around that. And so we do kind of have that sensibility and we kind of need that sensibility to think through how we are allocating projects, does this need a professional or, could this be done by someone who is, an accidental, informal project manager, Mario, who just walked by, is it okay? Mario can come in, he'll change the lightbulb, that's fine. But, if we really wanna, redo the wiring, we need Veronica in here. I think that's really interesting. 

I wonder if we can kind of go deeper and just go into hiring because I have seen some organizations, some big organizations who are like, you know what? Probably we don't need to hire project managers. We should just hire people and expect them to manage projects. And maybe we don't need that. And I'm just wondering, just, how does an organization decide whether to hire someone who's certified and formally trained in project management for something like a enterprise PMO function versus just hiring specialists who are capable of delivering projects, whether they use like a formal structure or not?

Bruno Morgante: I think a lot would depend on the type of company. If a company is even asking themselves the question of, Do I really need a PM or can I use anyone else? That company very probably is not a project type company. Let's say it's not a project organization. It is not an organization with a project management office in place or whatever PMO in place. 

And also I would say it is probably a company in which a professional PM would not be particularly happy to work with because that would be the place where a professional PM would start with, I don't know, maybe let's say the risk assessment, as you mentioned, and they will come to one of the stakeholders saying, well, look, I see those risks. And they would say, and then what? 

Or, Hey, look, the project is facing challenges. I need you to take a decision. And then the sponsor would say, well, you are the PM, make it happen. That is not something that as a professional PM, you would be happy to find. Of course you can adapt and adapting is a great skill. Now, is it possible? Well, personally, I don't know if you would like that, but there is another analogy that I have in mind when I think about that. And it is about wine. Do you like wine, Galen? Do you drink wine? 

Galen Low: Absolutely. Yes. 

Bruno Morgante: Take a wine. Let's say we take a Chianti, which is a famous wine. Everybody knows about it. Okay, good. If you go in whatever place, you can find a Chianti for, thinking about Italy back home. Five euros a bottle or much more. And sometimes you might enjoy a very simple dinner and the five euros Chianti would be okay. Sometimes you don't want to. The other day I was having a beautiful dinner with my parents and we had this beautiful T-bone and I selected my Chianti.

I said, well, mom, dad, this is the one that I want. It was outstanding. And so not particularly expensive, but I knew the producer, I knew the wine. And so I said, this is the one. It was outstanding. Now, what happens is if you experience the two, well, then you know, you can select. So, if you go to that type of dinner, that is the type of bottle that I want to versus, yeah, okay. Who cares? Now, personally, for me, I would never drink the five euros bottle. Can't you? But that's another story. 

But I can understand someone saying, if you're eating a pizza, well, that's fine. Okay. Here is the same. So do we always need professional PMs? Not really. But if I need to hire someone, especially if I want to potentially improve the project delivery success of my organization, well then potentially that's the path that I will follow.

I would definitely go into the professionalization of the body of the PMs. But then if I want to go there as a company, as an organization, if no, well, you can stay where you are. And it might be okay for you. It depends. 

Galen Low: I'm thinking of this one friend I have. And, they always want to go to a Michelin star restaurant.

But almost for the singular purpose of being disappointed. And you mentioned this culture, right? Of, if it's not a project organization, the culture doesn't value projects. And you're going to hire someone and then just look for ways to be disappointed because you're like, I'm spending six figures on this professional project manager.

That's not that good. If that's your mindset already coming out of the gates, then maybe that also is a good reason to hire a project management professional. If you feel like culturally your organization is just going to be scrutinizing and wanting to be disappointed in this person because they're so expensive, then yeah, maybe that's not the right fit.

All right, I'm going to round out with one last question, which is kind of more of a general question. I'm just wondering, what's one trend or change that you see happening in PMOs today that are going to make a big impact for the future of project management at large? 

Bruno Morgante: One change that I have seen in the project management world not necessarily in PMOs, specifically in PMOs, it is that more and more companies are shifting towards the concept of projects.

It is something that I see more and more, and it is something that it is also called like the project economy. And we know with that concept, but in the end, the more projects are there, the more project managers are going to be required, being them informal or not. And the same is with PMOs. PMOs will find themselves in companies where potentially in the past there was none.

And so that is something that we are already experiencing and we will definitely experience it more and more in future. Now those PMOs have to, I think they have to start understanding what are the needs and what is that particular organization we link to change? Because as a PMO, you can act on so many levels, on so many different topics.

That conversation at the beginning of the engagement, it is important. You need to understand what is the expectation and then you can prepare it for that. And this is something that it was true also 20 years ago, it didn't change, but definitely I see it more and more around. So companies that potentially before didn't have one, now they have a PMO. And sometimes they don't know exactly what they want.

So if they engage someone who has led, built, led a PMO before, that person is the one in charge to trigger that conversation because, I do a lot of mentoring on PMO leads that are getting in touch with me and telling me, well, I'm now in a head of PMO position and they don't know what I should do.

That's the first question I ask them. Okay, what is your sponsor or let's say your manager or the one that put you in that position, what do they want you to do? Sometimes the answer is they don't know. It's up to you to come with your knowledge, your skills and say, okay, look, this is potentially, the set of services that we might have available.

Which one do you want to be? And so this is what I believe it's going to happen more and more in more companies. The more they come with the idea of, okay, we need projects. And at a certain point, they will find themselves willing to have more, let's say, structure around those projects. And so I see that happening. Yes.

Galen Low: I love that. Yeah. Like to your point, it's always been that way, but now we have more of it. 

If somebody is in that position and listening to this podcast, they're suddenly the head of a PMO and the PMO is new and it's confusing. How do they get in touch with you and, the mentorship group that you belong to?

Bruno Morgante: So definitely, well, of course you can find me on LinkedIn. Probably the best way to find me is on my website, which is brunomorgante.com. And we can have a conversation, like start with that. And then I might be in a position to help you finding the right resources. There are of course mentoring programs out there at The PMO Leader.

Right now we are running the first mentoring program for PMO leaders. And it is for PMOs to PMOs. We started it and it's going great. It's a great place. And you see, usually, I, as I mentioned, I mentor a lot of people and they have a different ages. When we talk about the PMO leaders, they are usually pretty senior already and they need help because they find themselves in situations that they have never been before.

And so there is the possibility to help. So reach out brunomorgante.com or find me on LinkedIn.

Galen Low: Awesome. And I'll include those links in the show notes for this episode. 

Bruno, thank you so much for spending the time with me today. I've had a lot of fun. It was really insightful. 

Bruno Morgante: Oh, thank you for having me. It was a great conversation, and I believe it was helpful for a lot of people. 

Galen Low: All right folks, there you have it. As always, if you'd like to join the conversation with over a thousand like-minded project management champions, come join our collective. Head on over to thedigitalprojectmanager.com/membership to learn more. And if you like what you heard today, please subscribe and stay in touch on thedigitalprojectmanager.com.

Until next time, thanks for listening.