Project management offices or PMOs are not new, but they have had their ups and downs over the years. Recently, PMOs have been making a resurgence, especially in the United Kingdom. A well-planned, established and supported PMO goes a long way to support the efforts of an organization in streamlining their project and program processes. There is a lot to learn from implementing, growing, and taking down a PMO.
Some years ago, I was asked to provide some consulting expertise to an organization looking to establish a PMO linked to the IT department of their company. I had had some previous expertise in a number of organizations with that type of assignment, and I was looking forward to this work. The ultimate goal for this change in structure was to help the IT group deliver more consistently on their projects which at present were not meeting expectations and causing concerns.
After some preliminary investigations, including a review of the existing processes and methodologies in IT, we put together the groundwork to establish the new processes needed to support a small, entry-level PMO. Consultative in nature, the PMO was to house all forms, templates as well as provide the project managers with the training, mentoring and overall support on all things related to project management.
The hope was that after the PMO was established and running effectively that we could move over its mandate to be more controlling or directive. The Chief Technology Officer (CTO) was looking at fully integrating the new PMO structure into its department and having project managers reside there and not at all levels of the organization. In the CTO’s mind, this would streamline the processes and provide better control of the projects.
Everything seemed as if it was well underway until, one day, when attending a stakeholder meeting for a project which was about to start, a stakeholder mentioned that having the new PMO was going to be great except for the need to use all different forms than what is currently being used through the client service department.
Okay, so, double take, a look of total stupor on my face at the mention of another set of forms. Why had these not been reviewed or considered when we looked at our setup package?
That is the moment when I found out that this organization, I had now been working with for about three months, already had a PMO. A well-established PMO with a few years of projects and experience under their belt.
Sylvie Edwards, PMP, MCPM, STDC, CMP, FPMAC has 25 years of project management experience spanning various industries and is the owner of SRE Solutions, catering to clients in need of project management course development, education, project risk management, PMO setup/evaluation or recovery services. She has worked with one of the top five consulting firm, where she led projects in the information technology, banking, government, and securities sectors as well as being a manager in the risk management practice. Sylvie writes about risk management, communication, and PMO.
