PMO Leader


By Seun Kayode

Overview

One important factor for achieving and sustaining a business growth strategy is having a project management professional that can provide effective leadership and accountability on all projects. 

Documented below is the plan of action I will immediately deploy as the PMO leader for Korn Ferry on resumption.

Plan for managing projects at Korn Ferry
No.
Delivery Plan
1.
At the start of each project, I will setup a scope walk-through session with the project sponsor and key business stakeholders to ensure that the fully understand the project scope, goals and deliverables.

At the end of the session, a scope sign-off will be requested from the project sponsor. This will be a prerequisite that must be fulfilled before the project delivery starts.
2.
After the scope is signed-off, I will prepare a master project delivery plan. One of the items in that plan will be a project delivery schedule with delivery activities and resource requirements.

Based on the resource requirements in the delivery schedule, appropriate staffing plan and third-party vendor engagements will be initiated.
3.
For the kick-off meeting, I will invite the project sponsor and key business stakeholders and together we will decide on the project communication plan. Project progress report could be weekly, fortnightly or monthly depending on the visibility requirements of the stakeholders.

At that meeting, we will constitute two groups; a control group that will meet fortnightly to deliberate on tactical issues and a steering group that meet monthly to review strategic issues. This will also depend on the type of project and the requirements of the stakeholders.
4.
Having a well-documented and signed-off scope before the commencement of project delivery gives the project manager an advantage to control the scope of the project.

However, the reality of life is that scope will change as businesses operate in changing environments. The best way to manage scope change is to engage with the project sponsor and business stakeholders and outline the impact the changes will have on the project constraints and get a sign-off on any requested change.
5.
Task allocation to project teams will be done based on the delivery schedule created earlier.

Internal project review meeting will be conducted weekly or fortnightly based on the type of project.
6.
All project deliverables will be passed through system integration and user acceptance tests before they are released into the production environment.
7.
A constant item of the weekly internal review meetings will be the review of the RAID elements of the project, these are Risks, Assumptions, Issues and Dependencies.

Any item identified that can impact the scope, cost or schedule of the project and cannot be reasonably addressed at the project delivery team level will be escalated to the project control group or steering group as appropriate.
8.
As a certified and experienced PMP and Scrum master, I will be open to different project management methodologies at the start of the project and will select the method that will deliver the best value for the business.

Why I’m the best candidate for this role

Experience:
  • IT Program Manager for Emirates Airlines – Managed a team of about 50 IT professionals and a budget of 12 million dollars to deliver several strategic IT projects including a group wide virtual instructor led training tool that made it possible for Emirates Group to deliver training to teams across the globe and reduce costs associated with travel for training by about 30 %.
  • Senior Project Manager for Dell Professional Services – Managed a team of about 20 IT professionals to deliver IT projects for Dell’s strategic customers like Abu Dhabi Executive Affairs Authority, Dubai Culture and Arts Authority, ADNOC Group, Ministry of Public Works Dubai, etc.


Education and Certifications:
  • MBA, University of Strathclyde   (in progress, graduating in 2018)
  • BSc. Computer Science, American Sentinel University
  • PMP – Project Management Professional
  • PSM 1 – Professional Scrum Master
  • ITIL 2011 Foundation

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