The making of strong Project Management Offices within Legal IT

03
May
2012

Geoff Zodda

Law firm IT leaders about the success of their PMO

The definition of a Project Management Office is a group or department within a business, agency or enterprise that defines and maintains standards for project management within the organization. Formulating and implementing PMOs are a necessity to provide a standardized project management discipline within IT departments. Specifically, a PMO within a law firm environment is different than one at a corporation. With Partners being the shareholders and a PMO that would interface with various practices and user groups, managing and implementing projects within the firm could be a tough task.

In this environment, it takes a strong group and a leader who commands respect from attorneys and staff to accomplish their goals and establish standards for the organization. These goals need to be explicit and have targets in place. Without a documented plan that defines the parameters of the project, such as numbers, dates, deadlines, etc., no one is held accountable for the projects in queue.

In addition, the culture of the particular firm has to be kept in mind when considering whether to establish a PMO. For example, a firm’s culture that is open to having projects that are finite must also have buy-in from up top and accountability from users at all levels (attorneys and staff) in order for a PMO to be effective. If these things are missing, a PMO will get pushback and the effectiveness of having a formal group will wane. Suffice it to say, there are intangibles that go into making an effective PMO that one cannot assume without being part of the organization.

Michael Klebanow is the Director of the IT Program Management Office (PMO) for Proskauer Rose LLP, and, to a large extent, he attributes the success of his group to its ability to seamlessly integrate into the firm’s infrastructure. "There is no silver bullet but one thing is for sure -The key to a successful PMO is that it fits within the company culture. Too often PMOs don't consider this and fail miserably," comments Klebanow. He adds, "Project sponsorship is also essential because there are so many competing priorities." When comparing law firm to corporate PMOs, Klebanow suggests, "There isn't a corporate structure at law firms, where one person on top calls the shots on what projects move forward. That's one major difference."

As the Director of PMO at Sidley Austin LLP, Nicholas Maviano provides some great insights about what has made the PMO at Sidley Austin as strong as it is, stating, "The biggest factor of why the launch of the PMO was so successful was the strong leadership, support and positioning from firm leadership.  Our Executive Director believed that a successful model needed to include joint ownership of the role from both the CIO and the CFO. At Sidley, the PMO reports directly to both and this has worked out extremely well. Our CIO and CFO are strong believers of the department and they provide the support needed from the top. They also keep the office strategically aligned with the firm’s strategy. This strategic focus is critical to maintaining success. You also have to have strong Senior Project Managers who can work with anyone at the Firm, regardless of the personalities involved, and they have to be supported by knowing that their efforts are aligned with advancing the firm strategic goals." Maviano believes that PMOs are extremely successful for cross-departmental projects. Furthermore, he suggests that projects being run by a single department rather than the PMO do not have as much success, as a single department tends to focus on their individual needs, and not the needs of different departments or components of the firm that could be impacted.

PMOs, by design, are suitable for firms who believe the best strategy to manage and complete internal projects is to centralize operational processes and procedures for managing and completing projects. However, building the right PMO structure for a firm is primarily dictated by unique and mitigating circumstances within each organization, and requires careful steps to ensure the group is designed to be effective once in place. Brian Clayton, Director of IT at Taft LLP, is in the midst of building a PMO at his firm. Taft is putting together a group to fulfill strategic initiatives and a PMO more than satisfies that need. Clayton states, "The PMO group would work from a  position where projects would be developed to have a direct impact on the business. The focus would be to find the best way to implement, design, plan, train and incorporate milestones and risks."

Whether you are starting up a PMO or have been running one for years, the makings of a strong office is one that clearly requires a few major components to be present. Buy-in from stakeholders is number one on that list - without it, the group will never operate with confidence. Having strong Project Managers is highly-critical – they must be trusted to run major business-specific projects. And, your firm must have the right internal culture – only one that willingly adopts the PMO concept as a regular practice will succeed. If you have these ingredients, they will serve as the ideal recipe for your firm’s success with major deliverables in the future, and is a concept that all major law firms should consider putting into play in the future.