Effective Project Management: Traditional, Agile, Extreme, Sixth Edition

The PSO of the Future

In the short-term the PSO will evolve into a support organization for business projects, programs, processes, and portfolios — the four Ps that appear in what I have previously named the BP⁴SO. ² So far we have seen glimpses into that probable future.

The professionals who support the BP⁴SO will have some level of expertise in four different disciplines (project management, business analysis, information technology, and business processes). The integration of all four of these entities is future-oriented and certain to be part of your successful contemporary organization someday. For now, the best strategy is to make decisions that will accommodate that integration when it occurs.

Think of the BP⁴SO as the PSO of the future. It does not exist today but by my estimation the trends I see portend of just such an entity emerging in the foreseeable future. My message to you is to begin laying the foundation for it by designing your PSO and putting a plan in place so that it can begin evolving into the BP ⁴SO of the future.

Hub-and-Spoke BP⁴SO

In preparation for the BP⁴SO, the PSO hub-and-spoke organizational structure introduced earlier in this chapter is probably the only organizational structure that makes good long-term business sense.

Figure 13-11 illustrates the final form of the demand-driven evolution of the PSO hub-and-spoke structure to the BP⁴SO of the future. The BP⁴SO will be implemented in several phases. Initially the Enterprise BP⁴SO will be established ...