000: Podcast Introduction

PMI Talent Triangle: Business Acumen (Strategic and Business Management) Welcome to the PMO Strategies Podcast, where PMO leaders become IMPACT Drivers! Well, hey there! Welcome to the PMO strategies Podcast. I am your host, Laura Barnard, and I am honored and grateful that you are allowing me to spend a little bit of your day with you. My mission is to help PMO leaders, and those wanting to leverage the power of project management, make a big IMPACT in this introductory episode, I'm going to give you a little background about me and my philosophy on PMOs. I'm going to talk to you about why this podcast is so important to me, and how I'm going to help you unleash your professional potential so that you can make a huge IMPACT with your PMO. Now, for those of you that are not PMO leaders, but work in a PMO, manage projects or programs, or just interested in learning, if a PMO can help you deliver on your organization strategy. Don't worry. I've got plenty for you too. You see many of the techniques that I will share with you over the coming episodes will apply to you too because it's all about figuring out the best way to leverage what we know and what we need to know to get it done. So, who am I? Very early in my career, I fell in love with big transformational change. I happened to be a part of developing the very first program to require graduate students to do their thesis and dissertations electronically published on the internet, back in the beginnings of the internet. There, I saw just how incredible big changes like that could be to helping people share their message and literally change the world. Fast forward to 1999 where I had my first chance to build a PMO. I was asked to help the organization oversee and manage the portfolio of e-commerce projects that we're all moving forward at a frenetic pace with new technologies, new mindsets and new ways of delivering value, it was at the height of the dotcom craziness, and it was a wild ride, but I loved every second of it! That was at the beginning of what we now call the internet. It was not as easy to find what you needed if you were building your first PMO Google was not yet mainstream. And even if it had been there wasn't much online you can find that would help you figure out how to build a run a PMO. You couldn't simply type, how to build a PMO into Google and get almost 8 million results like you can today. You couldn't simply go to Amazon and order a bunch of books on building and running a PMO. Back then, you could maybe find a course or a book at the library or even in the bookstores. But you were mostly on your own. I had to figure out the best way to build the right capabilities and services to help our organization deliver on our customer’s initiatives. You see, all of these companies were getting their first ever chance to get their products and services out to the world. How exciting was that?? I made some mistakes. I learned a lot of lessons and I started seeing some magic happen when we figured it out. Now fast forward to today, where there are so many options and so much information out there telling you all the things you should or shouldn't do with your PMO, and it can be quite overwhelming. Just as overwhelming as it can be when you don't have enough information, having been in your shoes in the role of PMI leader inside organizations, and now having spent about two and a half decades, helping people make a big IMPACT driving transformational change. I get what you're dealing with the challenges you face and want nothing more than to help you be successful. By sharing what I've learned what I know works and what will help you reduce the stress, the headaches, the frustration, the confusion, and overwhelm that can come when you are trying to set up,  run, or even rescue a PMO. Over the coming episodes, you will see my belief system unfold. You will also learn a lot of real, practical,