MAY 2005 | PM NETWORK 65

BY MARCIA JEDD

The article is based on material in the white paper “Building and Leading aSuccessful Global PMO and PM Professional Program,” presented by RonKempf, PMP, at PMI Global Congress 2004—Europe.

E X E C U T I V E S U M M A R Y

> Consistent and strong project management processesand methodologies ensure higher success rates.

> A centralized PMO (project management office) struc-ture brings scalable capability to the discipline.

> Project managers are supported and nurtured byplenty of training, tiered certification programs andvenues to share knowledge.

> Methods to continuously improve project outcomes andthe project management discipline include up-to-dateproject management software reporting as well as for-mal and informal opportunities to share experiences.

FOUNDATION

DEVELOPING A STRONGPMO FRAMEWORK

SET THE STAGE FOR HP’S GREAT RESULTS INPROJECT MANAGEMENT.

SOLID

66 PM NETWORK | MAY 2005 | WWW.PMI.ORG

Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP), Palo

Alto, Calif., USA, had humble

beginnings. Electrical engineers

Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard

officially launched HP in

Packard’s tiny garage in 1939, where it built and sold oscil-

lators to the Walt Disney Co., one of its first customers.

Around the time HP went public in the late 1950s, digital

circuit maker Digital Equipment Corp. was just forming. In

1998, Digital Equipment was swallowed by PC maker Com-

paq Computer Corp., the largest acquisition ever in the

industry, later topped by HP’s 2002 merger with Compaq.

The Compaq-HP merger produced one of the largest

Fortune 500 companies today: $80 billion in annual revenues

and operations in more than 160 countries. Project manage-

ment at HP has grown and evolved with the company, says

Ron Kempf, PMP, director of project management compe-

tency at HP Services. During the HP-Compaq merger, rep-

resentatives from both companies sat down together to cull

the best practices across its operations. “Our project man-

agement methodology was robust on both sides,” says Mr.

Kempf, who hails from Digital Equipment.

>Since taking some of the best practices from its forerunner

companies, HP enhanced its project management discipline.

“A lot of our current project management processes came

from Digital Equipment,” says Renee Speitel, vice president

of HP services engagement office (PMO).“We combined the

best practices of the Digital Equipment-Compaq organization

with HP into one umbrella.” HP’s

project management competency

resides in its Technology Solutions

Group, where its Services division

provides consulting IT outsourcing

and customer-support services.

So how does an 800-pound

gorilla do project management?

Very methodically and with disci-

pline, but as Mr. Kempf explains, it

wasn’t always that way.

Formative YearsHP ran into trouble in the 1980s

when it was bogged down by proj-

ects that ran late and over budget.

By the early 1990s, it established a

global PMO to combat inefficiencies

and provide project management mentorship to project

managers worldwide. Today, Ms. Speitel and Mr. Kempf

are joined by a few other PMO staff in the United States to

comprise the worldwide PMO office at HP. The global

PMO is supported by regional PMOs in the Americas,

Europe, Mideast and Africa (EMEA), Asia Pacific and

Japan, as well as individual country PMOs.

>In short, HP’s PMO structure provides the support for

new business development and training of HP project man-

agers worldwide. “We don’t manage the projects through the

PMOs. We support the organization to support the proj-

ects,” Mr. Kempf says, noting the PMOs work closely with

project managers in HP Services’ three areas: consulting and

integration, managed services (outsourcing) and technology

services.These units employ some 65,000 professionals.

Mr. Kempf estimates HP Services oversees approximately

5,000 projects each year, ranging in cost from $50,000 to

several billion. Its robust set of project management

processes and training programs have allowed it to attract

and win big projects, such as managing Procter & Gamble’s

(P&G) IT infrastructure and other forms of business process

outsourcing—the project, awarded in 2003, is valued at $3

billion over 10 years and entails transitioning 1,850 P&G

employees from 50 countries to HP employee status.

Scalable Plug and PlayThis formalized PMO structure has allowed HP to be agile,

scaling its far-flung global resources to best match the com-

plexity and size of a project. As a

result of plugging into centralized

PMO resources, business units

make swift use of company

resources to pursue a diverse range

of projects. “Our project manage-

ment goals and methodologies all

have to support different HP busi-

nesses,” Ms. Speitel says. “It’s prac-

tical and pragmatic with an eye

toward managing the risks of a

deal, whether that’s risk that moves

in a positive or negative direction.”

HP’s practices and methods all

scale to fit the size, complexity and

range of the businesses. For

instance, HP follows one set of

guidelines for systems integration

TECHGIANT

Employees Trained 6,000+

PMP-Credentialed 2,500Project Managers (2,000 Within

HP Services)

Employees Earning PMP 50Credential Each Month

Courses Offered 40Number of Languages

14Offered

Customized Certification

4Levels (top 3 levels include the PMP credential)

HP PROJECT MANAGEMENT TRAINING & DEVELOPMENT

BY THE NUMBERS

projects versus another for IT outsourcing projects.

“For a $50,000 deal, you have to have a certain

amount of discipline, but you don’t have all the rigors

you do for a $1 billion project,” Ms. Speitel says.

Digital Equipment held many of the core tenants

that currently comprise HP’s rigorous processes and

methodologies. Notably, HP’s Customer Engage-

ment Roadmap evolved from that heritage. The

Roadmap, a complex grid that shows the architec-

ture of a project life cycle, incorporates HP’s Solu-

tion Opportunity Approval and Review (SOAR)

processes to bring approval of new business and

implementation progress review in a timely man-

ner. The process encompasses five areas:g Opportunity Creationg Opportunity Evaluationg Develop and Proposeg Sell and Negotiateg Delivery.

Some 3,500 project managers at HP Services worldwide

employ this framework to oversee an astounding 3,500

active projects at any given time. “The project managers

running the customer engagements are running a piece of

business for HP,” Mr. Kempf says. “They’re responsible for

profit and loss, customer satisfaction and other areas, so we

develop the programs necessary for the required skills to

address these major topics.” About 20 percent of the com-

pany’s project managers derive from its Asia Pacific and

Japan PMOs with remaining concentrations distributed

about equally between the Americas and EMEA PMOs.

The PMO framework serves as guidance office and

partner to HP project managers. “The people reviewing

and approving projects are the business managers. It’s a

process we manage and run for the business to make sure

they do the right thing,” Mr.

Kempf says. So small projects typ-

ically go through a country-level

PMO, bypassing the need for

regional or global PMO approval.

The Human Element>Much rests on the human ele-

ment of training and development,

Mr. Kempf says. In addition to the

Project Management Professional

(PMP®) credential and A Guide to

MAY 2005 | PM NETWORK 67

INNOVATIVE PMO STRUCTUREHaving a centralized management structure to support the projectmanagement discipline isn’t something readily found at enterprises,even those regularly practicing project management on a grandscale. Hewlett-Packard’s (HP) centralized “top to bottom” PMOstructure, says Renee Speitel, is only now emerging at other compa-nies, as are advanced levels of project management training.

“Project management often is more decentralized at other com-panies than it is here,” Ms. Speitel says. “We use common practicesthat are deployed through our infrastructure, extending down

through each country. This is mirrored in our businessstructure too, providing central management.”

Ron Kempf, PMP, notes that the PMOs are in closecontact with HP’s PM Profession Council, which he

chairs. The Council has representation by each of thethree HP Services divisions and from the PMOs in themajor world regions to constitute a seven-member team.

“We work with our workforce development organization tomake sure we have the right curriculum in place and the rightproject management processes in place,” Mr. Kempf says.

the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK®

Guide) training, HP curricula includes customized

courses and HP-specific material. For core courses, the

company works closely with ESI International to develop

and teach courses.

Advanced-level project managers attend a week-long

Project Management University (PMU), typically held in

about three to five locations annually, each attended by

about 150 employees. Mr. Kempf characterizes PMU as

extremely intensive, featuring a selection of both HP and

external speakers. Wrap-up competitions held at the end

of each PMU event, such as “Jeopardy!”- or Olympic-

style games, are a hit with attendees. PMU and the overall

HP Services development program have received awards

by the American Society of Training & Development.

Ron Kempf, PMP, Director, Project Management Competency, HP Services,

Palo Alto, Calif., USA

THE PROJECT MANAGERS RUNNING THE CUSTOMER

ENGAGEMENTS ARE RUNNING APIECE OF BUSINESS FOR HP.

68 PM NETWORK | MAY 2005 | WWW.PMI.ORG

Reader Service Number 023

>Mr. Kempf attributes networking

events at PMU and the informal sharing

of experiences among project managers

as instrumental in fostering knowledge

sharing and mentoring relationships. He

notes that HP’s post-training follow-up

surveys also shape its training content.

Every PMU attendee is polled three to

four months after the course to determine

what content they’ve put into practice,

among other results.

Other courses, such as how to address

a troubled project, and HP’s latest course,

Customer Program Leadership, help to

elevate project managers to advanced lev-

els. “The [latter] course is in pilot and typ-

ically will be offered as a three-day course

allowing attendees to advance leadership

skills such as communicating with C-

level executives,” Mr. Kempf says.

Looping BackHP’s homegrown software applications

are tied with applications such as

Microsoft Project and Primavera Team-

Play under Scorpio, its project reporting

system. Both Mr. Kempf and Ms. Speitel

stress that capturing project information

across various systems is essential, but

believe the one-to-one and small group

sharing of information—whether at train-

ing seminars, in meetings or online—

greatly enhances HP’s knowledge base of

what works and what doesn’t for project

management methodology and training.

“Knowledge management is an area

of continued focus. It’s important to

bring this knowledge back in and share it

with others,” Ms. Speitel says, noting HP

is starting to examine advanced ways to

capture and leverage project data. “We

struggle with how to make project infor-

mation useable.You need search engines

and meta data. You can’t just put it into

the network and say the information is

there,” she says. “So much of the knowl-

edge resides in people’s heads. It’s how

you get to that written form, or in men-

torships, conference calls and other ways

to share knowledge that counts.”

The focus on training and its solid

project management discipline has

served to propel HP toward project suc-

cess rates of around 70 percent, which

starkly contrasts with overall average

project success rates of around 45 per-

cent to 50 percent for IT industry proj-

ects. “In our business we make or lose

money depending on how well we exe-

cute a project,” Ms. Speitel says. “We

know for a fact when you don’t have dis-

ciplined project management, you get

into trouble and lose money. It all comes

down to some fundamentals of not exe-

cuting the discipline.” PM

Marcia Jedd is a Minneapolis, Minn., USA-

based supply chain and business writer.