Energy Information Administration (EIA)

Introduction

The United States Energy Information Administration (EIA) is the Federal Statistical System’s principal agency in the United States. It carries out the responsibilities of collecting, analyzing, and disseminating energy information and data, which promotes sound policymaking, efficient markets, and the public understanding of energy and its interaction and integration with the environment and the economy (EIA, 2012). The EIA programs cover natural gas, petroleum, coal, electric, nuclear and renewable energy. The Energy Information Administration is part of the United States Department of Energy.

Its therefore been in existence since 1977 following the market oil disruption in 1973. The EIA conducts a comprehensive data collection program that covers the whole spectrum involving the energy sources, energy flows, and the powerful uses, which as a result, generate the short and long term local and international energy projections; and also carry out informative analyses on energy. The EIA distributes its analysis, data products, reports in addition to services to the stakeholders and customers basically via the customer contact center and their website. The EIA has approximately 325 federal employees and is allocated a budget of 125 million dollars in a fiscal year.

Project identification

In 2013, a significant reorganization led to the creation of new teams within the divisions and functions of the sector of energy in EIA. This reorganization in the sector led to the exposure of the need for a more increased matrixed project coordination. The top leadership in EIA brought into consideration the establishment of a Project Management Office (PMO) to help develop, implement and enforce a more aggressive and quality framework on project management to instill performance and discipline consistency to the programs and projects of EIA. This first initiative to help find an appropriate solution failed to achieve sustained success. However, this effort helped to reveal the management change was also crucial in developing project management maturity.

An internal review which was carried out in 2015, led to the establishment of shortfalls in the EIT performance and planning. They identified that the large projects regularly exceeded the allocated budgets and were also being managed in a structured manner. The response to this shortfall, the management responded by advocating for the establishment of a Project Management Office. These findings acted as the catalyst for change, which resulted in a formal charter in the creation of the PMO.

Need for the PMO Model

The Staff of EIA were met with the critical challenge in the identification of the suitable PMO approach and framework for achieving the Organization’s strategic needs and requirements. Keeping in mind that the path ahead was an evolutionary and dynamic journey rather than a single implementation step, the staff thus needed a product that was able to outline the stages of implementation and quantified the sustainment of the transformational change. The framework to be implemented would aid in setting goals, quantifying the made progress, and the management of stakeholders’ expectations regarding the amount of difference. The EIA staff realized and understood the need to tailor the approach to help achieve the EIA’s objectives and needs. The EIA management authorized the adoption of PMO in April 2016.

The PMO and EIA Projects

The EIA projects portfolio is encompassed with plans that are associated with data, processing, collection, dissemination, and modeling. The EIA programs and projects, in some cases, can even be undertaken in more than four years. Their plans and programs are categorized into three segments, which are founded on project complexity, and operational impacts as indicated in Appendix A. The tier definitions outline project management process requirements and define the PMO’s role in the oversight, directly serving, support as a mentoring and information resource. The PMO contains a formal oversight and monitoring role with the Tier 1 enterprise projects and provides governance standards and consultative support to Tier 2 business enhancement projects.

The following pillars are the main focuses of the EIA PMO in service delivery:

Portfolio governance
Training and development
Guidance and resources

Strategic Elements of Project Management Office

The adoption and implementation of PMO had to be associated with substantial benefits, and this was a significant target and focus for the staff. The function of the EIA is primarily the production of energy data as a public product without any quantifiable financial worth back to the Organization, and the PMO aims at the improvement of the performance and culture of project management in the firm. The Organization’s staff recognized that measuring the value delivery and benefits would be a limiting factor. They were also on the realization that doing so would be primarily significant in the growth and sustaining of the PMO.

From the onset, the PMO recognized metrics to be able to trail value delivery. In the fiscal year, the PMO established a foundation of seven basic parameters to monitor growth in the project management skills and policy sets. The PMO also tabulated the results of the quantitative metrics in both fiscal years of 2017 and 2018. It also led to the addition of three more parameters.

In 2017 July, the PMO used the baseline measures to design and develop a customized maturity model based on a study of the industry best practices. The EIA was able to simplify the Capability Maturity Model Integration, which has five stages into three extensive levels of maturity; developing, initiating, and optimizing. Using the Dowd’s works on the Balanced scoreboard, EIA’s model outlined five areas of responsibility for the PMO (Governance, 2010). The Organization also established three to six performance metrics amid every area. The Organization also incorporated quantitative metrics inside the model with the target of each level of maturity. The staff was able to come up with qualitative metrics containing clear goals for every status of maturity. Finally, the team programmed a straightforward scoring system in Excel to help in the provision of thresholds and calculation of the general maturity levels based on underlying metrics. All these led to the outcome of the EIA PMO Maturity Model.

The EIA PMO Maturity Model contains three levels that measure the maturity within five lines of responsibilities, whereby all of them reflect the EIA strategic requirement capabilities fulfillment by PMO. Every area is featured through a related set of perceived results, in which they measure and assess to determine the implementation levels of maturity. The key features of the model include:

Three levels of maturity include; initiating, Developing, and Optimizing.
Formula based scoring system
A mix of quantitative and qualitative targets
Three to six metrics per area of responsibility
Five PMO responsibility categories

The work relating to testing and building the maturity model represents initiating the work level. Institutionalizing the PMO processes with efficient, tailored reporting, shows the growing maturity level. In this level, the new capabilities tend to become embedded entirely as the new ways of operations and working and are fit for the purpose.

The five lines of responsibility depict the expected capabilities that PMO is to develop and implement. Every line of duty concerns the assessment metrics in the evaluation of EIA’s performance against the expected results. The following are the lines of responsibility:

Served as EIA project management governing body, which involves the administration of the project schedule, ensuring adherence to the project life cycle, and ensuring adherence to the projects’ tools and processes.
Provision of training and developmental pathways. This is done by developing training roadmaps for the enthusiastic staff, coaching and mentoring, and tracking training metrics.
Provision of tools and templates in the facilitation of the management of the project life cycle. This is through overseeing the distribution and development of tools and models of project management.
Strategic portfolio management. This is by providing consistent reporting and oversight of all the three project Tiers, ensuring delivery within the scheduled time and the allocated budget.
Ensuring stakeholder engagement, coordination, and satisfaction. Ensure that the projects maintain open communication lines and proper coordination amid all the key project stakeholders, increasing project manager, page views of the intranet, and increasing executive and project manager satisfaction with the EIA PMO activities.

Reason for Using the Project Approach

The EIA PMO approach has continued to amass strong support from the top management since the performance of programs and projects is directly connected with the performance objectives of the senior executives in EIA; thus, this involves the direct interest in the success of PMO. According to (EIA, 2012) to the EIA was prepared for a transitional change that was more complex than merely developing a project management structure framework. Thus, the PMO was challenged to sustain and develop a more effective methodology and be able to pilot accountability and disciplined approach towards project management; therefore, the time was perfect for change.

Although the completion of several projects by EIA has been completed since the establishment of PMO, EIA has continued to experience a more efficient and effective portfolio selection structure and process encompassing a more realistic understanding of its competences. One example of PMO’s noticeable difference in the EIA projects is that there is more rigor to the project management in focus to improve the project quality outputs and reduce the post-project rework. Furthermore, with the recent portfolio review, the PMO has added project and program management competencies to its scope and responsibilities and the implementation of a process for the standard gate reviews within the project life cycle (Aubry, Hobbs, Müller & Blomquist, 2010).

There is also evidence of value delivery, which is emerging at EIA. According to Conti et al. (2016), the prior condition at EIA as the ”age of heroes” whereby the project management practices were ad hoc and increasingly dependent on the individual skills of those who carried them out. With the oversight of PMO, the project management practices operate with similar set conditions, terms, and understanding. The PMO has also helped in elevation and addressing of the cross-office function communication issues. The tailoring process is always continuous work, even in highly mature organizations. The objective of project management targets on improving the process effectiveness and efficiency (Morales, Guevara & Toro, 2014). Thus, data quality is vital in EIA performance metrics.

The PMO in EIA has helped engage the organizational team in owning the duties and responsibilities for the efficient and effective project management. EIA has been able to establish a CoP with some success. The self-managed community interest groups exist as forums for the project managers to help them share and present project management themes and best practices.

Even though there are still various challenges in future, there are many strengths associated with the PMO Maturity Model which establish that as the PMO continues to grow its maturity toward the third level (optimizing), there is also developed in its abilities to deliver value, improve the services and manage change. The task of ensuring that the staff is in direct engagement in the organization objectives; this plays a significant aspect in sustaining and realizing culture change.

Conclusion

The perspective of PMO’s approach has helped bring a plan and strategy in creating a starting point for the upgrade and enhance quality project management. Having the EIA PMO in the Organization has brought about many benefits which the Organization is realizing. According to the Organization’s top leadership, there is increased confidence in the Organization, especially in the pursuance of projects and programs as a result of the PMO approach. This had attributed to the Organization’s capabilities in undertaking more complex projects and applications before the implementation of PMO deemed to be more disadvantageous and problematic. Thus, it has led to the Organization’s performance in its plans to be done in a less ad-hoc manner. PMO is progressively building a healthier organization with better processes in its project management.

Tier Level	Tier Definition	Common Attributes
Tier 1	Critical to mission success or strategic	· Cross-office collaboration · High risk or complexity · Senior leadership quarterly review · EIA strategic priority · Statutory requirement · High impact on agency mission · OMB Major IT investment
Tier 2	Business Enhancement	· Existing product expansion · Less cross-office collaboration · Assistant Administrator oversight · Business process improvement
Tier 3	Operational EIA Projects	· Office Director oversight · Defined programmatic processes · Low cost · Low complexity

Appendix A

EIA project/ program categorization structure and aligned roles of the PMO

References

EIA, U., 2012. US Energy Information Administration (EIA),“. Annual Energy Outlook 2012.

Conti, J., Holtberg, P., Diefenderfer, J., LaRose, A., Turnure, J.T., and Westfall, L., 2016. International energy outlook 2016 with projections to 2040 (No. DOE/EIA-0484 (2016)). USDOE Energy Information Administration (EIA), Washington, DC (United States). Office of Energy Analysis.

Goh, H.H., Lee, S.W., Chua, Q.S., Goh, K.C., Kok, B.C. and Teo, K.T.K., 2014. Renewable energy project: Project management, challenges and risk. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 38, pp.917-932.

Kirkendall, N.J., 2010. Organizational Performance Measurement in the Energy Information Administration. USA.

Osorio, P.C.F., Quelhas, O.L., Zotes, L.P. and Shimoda, E., 2014. Critical success factors in project management: an exploratory study of an energy company in Brazil. Global Journal of management and business research.

Morales, C.M.B., Guevara, I.P. and Toro, J.S.P., 2014. PMO IMPLEMENTATION EXPERIENCES IN COMPANIES OF MEDELLIN CITY. Revista EIA/English version, 11(21), pp.133-143.

Aubry, M., Hobbs, B., Müller, R. and Blomquist, T., 2010. Identifying forces driving PMO changes. Project Management Journal, 41(4), pp.30-45.

Aubry, M. and Hobbs, B., 2010, April. Project Management Office (PMO): A Quest for Understanding. Project Management Institute.

Governance, I.T., 2010. The Project Management Office (PMO) Best Practices and Processes.

Mohamed, W.R.I., 2014. Types of PMO and their roles in the UAE Oil & Gas Production Companies (Doctoral dissertation, The British University in Dubai (BUiD)).