Category Archives: CV Tips

CV Tips, CV Writing, PMO CV, PMO Reporting, Project Management Reporting

Reporting your reporting on your PMO CV – PMO CV Tips

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Love it or hate it, reporting is a part of business life and plays a huge role in project management – continuing with our PMO themed articles, today we shall look at what to include in your PMO CV. So there are a few versions of reports used within the PMO which are (or should be) targeted towards specific groups of people, depending on your PMOs service you will invariably be required to create, maintain and update an overall programme plan and more than likely hold the control of individual project status reports.

Pulling together information to create a management report is an essential part of successful PPM support, knowing what is going on within  the programme and ensuring interdependencies are aligned are core competencies asked for by hiring managers for their PMO. I have read thousands of PMO CVs over the years and more than half of them have no reference to reporting within the role remits, regardless of seniority of role this information is missing. It is also important for those wishing to make a career change into project management and specifically a PM support role talk about reporting in their CVs. It is a transferable skill which does tend to closely align with job descriptions in the field of PM.

So, what kind of reports are you generating/updating/monitoring/presenting? Financial reports are very important, especially for the more complex programmes of work which can easily spiral out of control. Let’s look at some of the other core project documentation which is reviewed against reports to ensure the project/programme is still inline with strategic goals.

 

  • The Business Case should describe the value to the sponsor from the outcomes of the programme.
  • The Project Plan should define the product being produced, resources and time needed for all activities, also covering any dependencies between activities
  • Project Initiation Document (PID)  defines significant aspects of the project and forms the basis for its management and the assessment of overall success.
  • Stage Plan will detail how and when the objectives for the stage are to be met by presenting the deliverables, activities and resources required.
  • The Work Package provides information needed to deliver one or more specialist products.
  • The Change Control Strategy documents the procedure to ensure that the processing of all Project Issues is controlled.
  • Highlight Reports    provide the Project Board (and other stakeholders) with a summary of the stage status at intervals defined by them.
  • Project Issue Log     – an issue can have a negative or positive impact on the project.
  • Risk Management Log         – risks can be threats to the successful delivery of the Programme or Project.
  • End Stage Reports summarises progress to date and should provide an overview of the project.
  • Post Project Review documents if business benefits have been realised and recommendations for future improvements should also be recorded.

Reporting

Of course you know all this, but looking at it listed in black and white should really prompt some thoughts about just how important reporting is and how embroiled it can be, so don’t assume that the recruiter/hiring manager/HR know you are analysing all this data and pulling together information for your programmes of work – talk about it on your CV!

CV Tips, CV Writing, PMO, PMO CV, PMO Process, Project planning

Planning the Planning on your PMO CV – PMO CV Tips

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Carrying on with the PMO CV tips series, today we will look at Planning. Planning is one of the key areas to success with every element of project management and the PMO pays a large part in ensuring plans are in place and fit for purpose. There are many areas of planning you may be involved in and it is important that you are addressing this core competency on your CV. I have come across many PMO roles which take a different slant to the amount of input  required to programmes of work – some PMOs write the project plans for the project managers whereas others coach PMs to write them and of course the is cross programme planning to take into consideration also.

Planning

Portfolio planning is a strong area within PMOs and again it comes down to who is putting these together, monitoring and updating them. Think about all aspects of your input into planning and write a list, once you have a strong list, you need to then think about how you should convey this information on the CV. For example you may be able to box together certain elements of the planning into 2 or 3 core areas, if one area is around coaching and advising PMs on putting together plans then talk through what you actually do to achieve this. In larger organisations with big teams you may find that running workshops is an effective approach. Talk through how you put together the workshop materials and run the events – are you performing presentations or taking a more collaborative approach? Are your PMs actually business heads who have been asked to manage projects, so they are subject matter experts but haven’t formally managed projects. Or are you implementing a new project management structure to the business and working with experienced PMs? What are the templates you are introducing to the team? Are they based on any specific models and what software are you using? By pulling together these pieces of information and placing in a concise bullet point within your role remit, you will be greatly enhancing your CV and making it much easier for recruiters and hiring managers to really understand what your input is into this core area which is almost certainly always asked for in a job description.

CV Tips, CV Writing, PMO, PMO CV, PMO Process

PMO CV ideas: Process – PMO CV Tips  

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This is the next part of my PMO CV writing tips series, last week we talked about relationship building, today I want to talk about process. PMOs vary drastically from programme to programme and industry to industry – so it would be fair to say that if you have worked in a few, you have a good variety of experience; one key area to a PMO is process. Now depending on your specialism, you need to look at addressing processes from different angles – first port of call is to identify what type of PMO professional you are. If you work in permanent positions, it is likely that you either set up and manage PMOs moving forward or pick up PMOs and manage them as they stand, maybe addressing bottlenecks and tweaking processes etc. A contractor is likely to be either a fixer or a builder – as a fixer you will go into organisations and identify areas for improvement (sometimes it isn’t actually a PMO but a PM environment which requires some structure), as a builder you will go in and build a PMO in-line with strategic goals and once in place you will probably move on, handing the reigns to a permanent employee.PMO Structure A lot of PMO people that come to me are contractors who work at senior level to address core issues with PM capability within the business, they work with the PMs and business heads to identify why projects aren’t deemed successful and re-engineer processes to work with the organisation. Processes can be typical PMO tool kit things such as planning, reporting, RAID log templates but quite often, the contractors need to develop new processes for specific areas of the business. It is these processes which really showcase their effectiveness within troubled environments and add great value. When you are writing your CV, you must talk about all of these and give examples of where you have worked with the business or suppliers etc to pull together an effective way of working.

Do not assume that employers know this is “just part of the job” – talk about it and sell your skills, organisations are always looking to improve how they do things, if your specialism is identifying weak areas and driving forward solutions, tell us!

CV Tips, CV Writing, Job Applications, PMO, PMO CV

Creating the perfect PMO CV: Relationship Building – PMO CV Tips

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Last week I wrote about key factors which make a PMO really work and how you should be including these in your CV to attract employers. As part of a series I will be talking through the various elements to assist you in building a strong CV which will enhance your job applications.

Relationship building is an important part of life; we are constantly doing this whether it is in our personal lives or at work. However in a PMO environment it is particularly important to be forging strong relationships across the board. If your PMO is a new function then it is inevitable that you will need to gain buy-in from a few entities but even well established PMOs must strive to keep communication open and realistic. We come across issues with all areas of business from time to time – whether it be suppliers being difficult, PMs not adhering to governance, business heads not allowing sufficient resources to work on projects in matrix environments, the list goes on…

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The mistake most make when it comes to writing a CV is to assume that the reviewer (hiring manager/recruiter/HR) will know that you constantly work on building relationships – it is a huge oversight and as such can be the difference between being shortlisted or rejected for the role, and it simply isn’t good enough to merely state “relationship building”. Therefore it is good practice to make a note of specific examples where you have overcome blockers/brought teams on board etc. When you have a list, work through it to identify which ones you feel added most value. Turn the list into bullet points, short statements which tell the reviewer what the issue was with some context and how you added value. Then you can use selected examples in your CV when applying for jobs, if you know a little about the environment in which you are applying to, such as issues they are currently facing then you can tailor your CV with relevant examples. For the more generic job adverts/descriptions you can supply a variety of examples covering all bases, these examples can be added into key achievements so they are highlighted to the reviewer and/or integrated into the role remits also which will add a little diversity to the roles which may appear to be a bit “samey”.