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Voice Transcription
Audio File: REC033

Client: Thomas

Recording Status: 18 minutes and 56 seconds

We’ll have to focus on keeping things simple is… is… identifying a need. So in back thirty plus
years ago in boys scouts, one of the things we identified as a need is the troop wanted to go to
a Camparee and so that the point was to then ask a question well what does that mean? What’s
it take to get there? What…what are we doing? What! You know? And... and… And, then there
were trying to figure out what that meant , Well that meant that we were going to do some
competitions for not tying and building a cement pour tower , then having someone do cement
pole flags back and forth and so that meant now we could establish goals for each team
member within that, That Hey! We had to get ready and master those skills and be able to
execute against that so that we could get the accomplishment of, because in the end the need
was going to the Camparee. We had to... to... Meet all these individual goals along the steps so
when we got there We Could have effectively participate in that Camparee. Otherwise we could
have slept over night and we could go somewhere else to sleep, “You know go up in the high
Sierras”, but if we want to go to Camparee and participate and… and… participate with the
other troops; that meant loading those things so then you created you’re a… measurement and
a… verifications you went along how did you verify that each person knew how to do their
knots , while you had them demonstrate that or if we’re building the tower to hold the Simone
pour flags on so we could build that and verify that we could build it in the time frame with the
proper knots and so forth and so that gave you a feed back and…so we knew in the beginning
that if we could do these things and show to ourselves that we could then we would be
Successful. So then we went off to have a great Camparee all the team members enjoyed
themselves and then we went back the year after and year after that,…

{Speaker 2: “that’s a great example”}

…and so to me it’s the same thing if someone comes up and says I need to have a PMO Okay,
then what’s that need? What’s driving for having a PMO is it projects not being done on time in
budget is it that were doing projects and their getting done but they are done on hookerly
events, Is it that we can’t get project managers and develop them, so I want to develop a
project manager core. Do we want to have one of the fundamentals questions for PMO’s is…
is… are you going to be a process procedure PMO or you are going to be a Recreated to mange
projects and deliver projects? Okay! Now each one has its pit falls one is process and procedure
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become the policemen which does nobody any good you just hate it and basically it comes to
check the box mentality and that’s not good. And on the delivery side if I get wrapped up and
always delivering and that’s all I do is deliver, eventually what happens that you get reabsorbed
back by the organization because they say Hey! Now you figured out how to deal with it, so we
don’t want you to be a standalone group, go back into the units because you can be more
effective by learning with the units and then what happen that the PMO’s break down at that
point, but then you lose the membership for participation and you’re not able to show that
you/we got results by having that! So, then comes into what are the rest of PMO activities?
Well again in either model that determines my need for creating and then what are my goals to
be able to show that I am meeting that need and then have measurement and verification
which could be measurement and verification feedback, do you want to describe that as we go
forward and it’s that simple, just like most things in life are!, we over complicate these things.

{Speaker 2: So what was the need back in when you started in 2003 and 2004?}

Well in the end army for a seven eleven at that point was is the overriding need was that a
company’s has a retailer was into getting projects out the door on time and within budget.
Because we had actually setup a… Multi-year roadmap of multimillion dollar projects that
needed to get done and built one on top of the other and so until you can get the first layer
done and the second layer and then the third and then the fourth. And the paybacks in this
really didn’t occur till you got to the third and fourth layer; the first two were basically
infrastructural. So you got to build the foundation like anything else in this world; you ain’t got
a good foundation you can’t fly as you go along… or build a tall building that’ll stake up. And so,
troubles in the first foundational layer… And so from there, if we’re going do that! We should
have the first step in determining that what type of PMO we are going to be? And choose it to
be a consultive process and procedures where we were going to no pleasing. Okay! The only
real pleasing we would do is through measurement and verification not through going out
saying having you done a checklist? And we actually didn’t start stage gating, which was the
first real pleasing activity till three years later. And that was for a different reason we started
the stage gates. The stage gating was started because; during this time we also decided to
outsource most of our work and so being in an outsourced environment stage gating was what
was used as control with our partners and delivering the solutions.

{Speaker 2: So, I understand the need and all these big projects coming down the pipe, why…
Why… What was the reason for thinking there needed to be change though? In other words
what was different? Whether, they were not doing a great job at that time? Whether, they
fail projects or what were the concerns they said Oh! We can’t handle this coming up
because…}
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OH! They told from the stand point that they are way over budget or over time. The project to
project there is no consistent work effort being done. So for example; requirements documents
would look different for project ‘A’ and project ‘B’ and project ‘C’, in that we might have half
the team members run a ‘B’ on ‘B’ and the other half or third on ‘C’ as were going so we were
confusing the heck out of our users at that point. Um… we were able to effectively to
communicate what was going on for the project. We would have a 4000 mind break down
structure with all the tasks, when partners could come up with all the tasks, we are not realizing
that YES! You have to understand that all the tests out that you have to recap that at a much
higher milestone level and report it. In a milestone level driving all work streams together to get
work done! So, the point behind it was one is that reference for here is a tool kit of activities
that we need to have, so… that was our first charge. Once is Ok for once we don’t have
something as a process and procedure; so we prioritize the process and procedures so you
cannot do them all at once. The second part within there is, we instituted a status reporting,
doing it on a spreadsheet manually on a weekly basis, since our Company reports on a weekly
basis everything. And then did a reporting on how many projects were over budget and over
scheduled as they finished, so there was a verification on the backend to say OK here what our
true baseline is. A we’re going through big exercises to coming up with the definitions, word of
what we are going to call a project over budget or over scheduled. They communicated that to
everybody so that it wasn’t applied arbitrarily between projects as we know. Again just a
verification saying, Ok! We agreed we are going to use these values these standards and based
on that these are ways that these projects fall and then feed that back to the organization as
part of that verification.

{Speaker2: So, you started that work early to grasp what percentage of projects where,
struggling and I thinks some of the stuff we show 50 percent of the I.T. projects were not
doing their jobs there yea! So, why did they pick you Steve Barton?}

They picked me because; I was the person when either when they had a failing one projects or
said; come in and bails this out to get it done. And basically I had the dirty abstrude to deliver
projects on time and schedule and did the project management activities as a non formalized
training Ok! Because I had no PMI certification or even if I get it, really didn’t care about it! Got
that background, I guess from my Dad, is an Engineer in the Aero Space industry. So there they
did do project management activities and he brought them home and sort of instilled it in us
and then if you heard my example with the Boy’s Scouts were using those things as a young
man and just carry that forward through the Navy for ten years and then there is seven eleven
and basically is because I… And I guess the best play on it would be … that the people said they
want Steve to be the project manager to get the work done. So that’s why I got into the PMO
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{Speaker2: They knew you had a good track record and they know you could help on recovery
ones?}

Well help on recovery and the other part is the; my own disposition on helping people get
things done! So, that’s another big key to being selected in the PMO is having concern on to
help others get successful results that I don’t have to have all the credit for it!

{Speaker2: Alright! So, you have talked about this foundation, so what was the foundation
of? So you said you had to do some standardizational things first and how does this relate to
this low hanging fruit. You know the stuff you got to have some early winds we talked about.
But how did you even… I mean were you by yourself, how did you kick this whole thing off?}

Well! The foundational would be pulling up my… the complete Project Management on his
hand Brook. Which I went out and when they said: “Hey Steve you could be in the PMO”, I said,
“Well I don’t know what that is!” So, I went out and look to the… it had a reference of the
Project Management Institute, had someone on their site and look in the glossary in their books
and then actually typed in PMO at the time and it only came back with like four or five books…

{Speaker2: This was 2003?}

… Time frame! It was all on and said Ok! This one looked good and picked it up and so from
there within it there was a matrix of the twenty activity areas within a project management
office to additional unit support. So, based on those looked at what word the different areas
that we can support, that would give us a bang! So, one thing was to finding the processes and
procedures if there wasn’t the tool kit. I’d bring the tool kit as a field consultant out in the field
with the business; business driven here. So, I’d go into each franchise and each store and their
oligemia, hundred, two hundred things you have to deal with every time you walk in the door.
You just don’t know which ones it’s going to be! And so as a field consultant, the successful
ones who are the ones who are able to pull out when someone said here is my problem or my
need, to bring out and say well there is one or two ways you can solve this!

{Speaker2: Like what’s an example?}

Well. For example, I am ringing up lottery tickets and we were short or I’d shrinken that for the
last month to fifteen hundred dollars and I can’t figure out where we are going? So… Let’s ID…
We know what the problem is! So, are tracking the lottery tickets meaning do you actually
record how many you put out there and how many were sold? And what the ending ticket
number was, so are they missing a day even not just a shift but a day? And said if you can do it
by shift that would be better, because you will be able to isolate that person and oh! By the way
I’ll work with you up and we created a word document printed out at the table… real simple…
Saying Ok, here is the date, here’s the book number and here is the ticket number and then
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ought to the write on how many were sold during that shift and you can keep adding them and
find out where the problem is? So that is an example of a tool kit.

{Speaker2: So as a Consultant you were…?}

…So, again the same process comes when were in projects. So, in a project someone says:
“Steve I can’t a… figure out the schedule here? All my partners give me these thousand lined
InvesP project plans, where they’ve got… you know… I got to schedule a meeting! I got to
update the notes to the meeting! I got to review the material! I got to get the formal sign off for
the material! Ok, so they get all these tasks and I said well Ok! How did they decide what those
tasks were? Do you have a work breakdown structure of the activities that were within … to
deliver the functions that you scoped for this work effort? And so bring them up a level and
start managing at a set milestone based on the functions that are being delivered. And so to
integrate that end so… so… again the taking the problem of… I don’t know what? How to
manage all of these blimes InvesP projects. By the way it’s still one Microsoft tool that
everybody cusses at after twenty minutes because it is no user friendly as you go along. So, the
point is, here is a tool that’s called the sub-milestone chart. That writes it down and based on
the functions you are delivering and thus measure against that rather than trying to measure
against individual tasks. That’s you partner development delivery company that’s working with
you. You shouldn’t be at the sub-level manager managing at that level.

{Speaker2: Okay! So, I perceive I understand. So, you went! You got the book! You got all the
potential processes that you could do? So made yourself aware! So, what was the first
thing?... } 16:42-16:59

… So the first thing