xxx You have a wealth of ideas but limited resources. You need a way to determine what ideas are worth pursuing as smart investment decisions.
When your organisation identifies a mix of projects, or perhaps a single major project or programme, a proven way to improve project success rates is to create a central office. Known by many names (we've encountered over 50), but broadly referred to as the project management office or PMO, it provides a range of project services on behalf of the organisation.
If you are not ready to commit to a new office, consider our project management officer role training, to see what one expertly trained and dedicated person can do for your project portfolio.
- Poor project organisation practices
- Poor project management practices
- Missing project objectives
- Poorly defined project objectives
- Ineffective project planning
You will find little consensus between organisations, among project managers or executives to the answer to the basic questions, "what do the letters PMO stand for!" to "what are types and functions of the various PMO types?".
This is because PMO's are designed or come to existence because of:
- unique cultures
- serving specific needs
- pursuing exclusive strategies with different approaches.
One size cannot fit all.
Our approach overcomes this challenge by having a wide range of services in our
- PMO Service Palette
- PMO Operational Canvas
- PMO Maturity Model
expressed as a roadmap
Our PMO Service Palette gives you an idea of some of the services that successful PMOs provide. We work with your organisation to determine your desired end results, then design and deliver the services to best achieve them. Our PMO Capability Database has services modeled against benefits and return on PMO investment.
Below is a selection showing just 45 PMO services under 9 categories that we develop for you.
confirming strategic priorities on behalf of projects / programmes
defining business goals in conjunction with the organisation
alignment to wider non project organisational initiatives
source of environmental scans
opportunity analysis for the organisation
project prioritisation (from monitoring to control)
benefits realisation tracking and reporting
portfolio reporting
resource management allocation
central project portfolio risk management
balancing
organisation benefit realisation management
business case process management
schedule / cost / scope management
project integration into programme
project deliverables handover management
organisation change preparation
stakeholder expectation and satisfaction management
change obstacle removal
organisational (inc. function, departmental) readiness assessment
stakeholder communication management
standards setting (quality assurance, risk management, security measures, testing techniques, portfolio requirements)
metrics definition and measuring
methodology definition and integration
process development and improvement
individual project / project portfolio performance reporting
issue escalation
financial management compliance
human resource management compliance
project / programme audit
training and development
career path definition
organisation capability development
credentials management
experience verification
knowledge management policies definition
managing intellectual property
managing project and programme collateral
lessons learned collection, developing and sharing
content management and collaboration
tools provisioning, implementation and support
internal consulting
internal / external resource usage, time and billing monitoring
external consultant sourcing, induction
project interdependency monitoring and control
Reach: The organisational units the PMO serves
(from one unit to the entire organisation)
PMO's can provide their services to the entire organisation but they often operate within an organisational subset such as a function, department, division, or some other sub unit (e.g. the "IT" PMO or the "Retail Division PMO"). In large or dispersed organisations this can also give rise to a structure where there is an overall organisational PMO that integrates, monitors and / or controls a combination of sub unit PMO's.
Authorised Influence
(from advisory to authoritative)
PMOs influence can range from giving advise that hopefully will be followed to an office authorised to mandate what happens.
Advisory PMO's are authorised by the organisation (ideally via their charter) to make recommendations but not to take action enforcing them.
at the other end of the spectrum are PMO's that can decide to move resources, mediate over issues, mandate project policies.
....
Project Management Offices that have grown organically often find themselves in unusual if not un efficient parts of the org chart. For example, the PMO may reside in the technology department because that's where the organisation had the most projects at the time when the need became clear. But now the organisation needs another set of projects delivered, perhaps they are more people change than technology change oriented, the IT PMO is not available, willing, or maybe able to assist. There are no easy answers when looking for a home for your PMO. In an ideal world your PMO should be close to the place where the strategy comes from. After all, thats where the activities will come from.
The focus of a project manager is to deliver the project.
In the absence of a central office they can adopt any practice they deem fit good or bad.
They are only human and will be subject to bias like everyone else.
Their plan may be perfect but it may ignore the other needs of the organisation.
They cannot be expected to spot issues in other projects that will impact them.
What a project manager deems the least important to their project may be important to the organisation.
As a project manager you know that the inclusion of another person to the team can add workload and input that you do not desire.
Its not
You will find little consensus between organisations, among project managers or executives to the answer to the basic questions, "what do the letters PMO stand for!"
Classic (will never go out of fashion): Project Management Office, PMO, Project Office.
Geographical: Northern Ireland PMO, Dublin PMO, International PMO
Organisational Reach:
Department - IT PMO, HR PMO, Finance PMO, etc.
Division: Retail PMO (Where this division already has for example an IT, HR, finance presence
Service Descriptive: Strategic PMO (usually indicating association with projects derived from the current strategy)
Project Descriptive: Project X Project Office, The X Programme Office etc.
