Difference between Project Management Office (PMO) and Project Managers (PM)

Project Management Office (PMO) exists in the central organization to monitor all the running projects in the company. PMO controls the management of the projects, programs or the combination of both.

Thus, in a nutshell, PMO support and control Project Manager (PM). In details, the difference of PM and PMO are below:

• PM controls the resources achieve the project objectives, while PMO optimizes the resources to be shared among running projects.
• PM manages the scope, schedule, costs, and quality of the products. In line with that, PMO manages overall risk, opportunity and the relation between running projects.
• PM focuses on specific project objectives, while PMO oversees the major programs scope changes and interpret them as potential opportunities to better achieve business objectives.

Clear Responsibilities in Project Implementation

Even if during first step of the project all responsibilities have been defined for both parties (client and vendor), there will be new areas or work that need to be done and monitored. These new tasks should be make clear who are the entity that will be responsible.

It is important that during monthly meeting, these new responsibilities were declared to avoid misunderstanding in future. A chart displaying new tasks and responsibilities will be helpful.

This process should be repeated every time new tasks appear on the duration of the project implementation. It is better to anticipate and make every thing clear in term of responsibilities. Avoid blaming each other when the tasks are going wrong. You will not benefit anything from blaming other party. Instead, learn from the mistake and strategize better for the next phase.

What is Cut Over Procedure?

Cut over procedures in implementing a new system is interpreted as the process of taking the data separately during cut over period because the new system is going to be implemented and the old system is taken down already. It is part of the project implementation phases. In small system implementation where all the implementations process can be done in matter of hours, cut over procedures are not needed because all the process can be done at night where no activities or transactions are made on the system. However for huge system implementations, cut over procedures should be defined because the implementation can take 1 whole day or even more.

Each business process affected due to system down should be analyzed. Utility company can start doing some advertising that they are going to be off-line for 1 day or more to avoid customers coming at those days of implementation. But in the end, there are some process can can not be stopped. Usually this involve with the interface with other system like banking. The banks will continue to receive payments and send all payment files. Thus, specific cut over procedures should be defined.

Due to its complexity and to avoid problems with other system and customers, many utility companies choose to implement new system during major holidays to ensure that there is not interruptions in normal actitivies.

Project Methodology Explained - Data Gathering Sweeping

Today, I was discussing with the client about the methodology of how to sweep the area using map in data gathering. This data gathering is about taking information of meters and GPS position of the properties.

The discussion was going very well and a lot of ideas and comments were interchanged. The hardest part in the data gathering sweeping using maps is during planning. During planning, we need to visit the area and divide the area into smaller areas to work on. Base on the smaller area define, the maps will be printed and the sweeping direction should be defined on the map.

Estimation of how many days to finish the small area should be determined. The end results of this planning will be:
- Printed maps with sweeping direction defined. All these maps should be properly named so that we can easily identify the relation with the big map that we are going to post on the wall.
- Estimated schedule to finish sweeping the area. This could be the basis to compare the progress and performance of the surveyors.
Of course we have other tools to monitor the performance and do the auditing of data quality gathered by surveyors.

Take note that good planning is the important for the data gathering. As much as possible, we do not let the surveyor to make a decision in the field. All guides should be clear from the beginning. All sweeping directions should be defined clearly in the maps.