Program Management Office (PMO) > Leading the PMO

What does your project management office need to do to ensure that it's serving your organization? What makes it effective? In this writer's professional experience, five primary factors greatly influence the ultimate success of the PMO.

How many people in your organization know what the PMO actually does? Here, we look at the work that the PMO can do to help a key group of people understand how the PMO operates: project stakeholders.

Do PMOs have value? Arguably, yes. At least...sometimes. According to the results of recent research, the presence of a PMO was often a contributor to the attainment of organizational value. What was of particular concern, however, was the actual role of the PMO within the organization. Two broad types emerged within the research; find out what they are inside...

As we enter 2011, it's time for a refresher--it's the perfect time to explore the cross section of views and perspectives about PMOs. It's the perfect time to see what others are thinking regarding the state of PMOs, and this article will focus on starting a PMO, avoiding PMO failure, trends and the future of the PMO.

There are many ways you can poison your PMO and ensure that it doesn’t see tomorrow’s sunrise. In our last article, we looked at some leading PMO killers such as failing to identify an identity, ignoring your stakeholders and making things complicated. In the conclusion of this two-part series, we look at five additional deadly deeds.

Why do PMOs have such a high failure rate? It's time to take a look at the top 10 PMO worst practices--and advice on how to avoid them.

Does your PMO Produce Multiple Obstacles for your project or Promote Many Opportunities for success? PMOs often get a bad reputation on agile teams, but it need not be that way--they can also add tremendous support and be a great help.

The head of the PMO has a significant responsibility to the project managers to act as career coaches and mentors. Are you taking that role seriously?

How can you ensure that your PMO is as strong as it can be as the economy recovers? In this article, we look at how you can use this opportunity to improve your PMO--making it a more significant contributor to your organization than it was before the downturn.

A project management office can operate on a continuum, from providing project management support functions in the form of training, software, standardized policies and procedures to actual direct management and responsibility for achieving the project objectives. Here, we look at some of the key responsibilities and features of a typical PMO.

Contrary to a recent report, PMO longevity doesn't lead to greater success; PMO success leads to longevity. And PMOs that thrive share fundamental commonalities of alignment, from culture to customer, that they start getting right early in their existence. Here are six ways your PMO needs to be aligned.

Before PMO directors pursue ISO 9001 certification, it is important to understand what it constitutes and how it can benefit PMOs. For some, the certification can be a way to increase performance and staff confidence. For others, it can be cost-prohibitive and add little value.

Many companies struggle with justifying the need to maintain a project management office after it is established. But the onus is on the PMO itself. Here are five key performance indicators that PMOs should use to measure effectiveness and ensure alignment with the needs of the organization.

A strong resource planning process contributes to PMO and portfolio productivity. At the annual Resource Planning Summit, practitioners gather to share insights, approaches and results.

While working for a small firm, a new PM was asked to go to a major company to help them integrate their IT PMOs...leading to the worst three months of his career. As his two-part article concludes, we find out if if there was truly a light at the end of the tunnel--or just a train coming the other way.

One of the unsung PMO functions is managing risk. There are a lot of aspects of risk management where the PMO can provide tangible support to project managers in their endeavors. In this article, we explore some of that support in terms of identification, analysis and response.

What will project management look like in the future? One writer summons his smarts as he comes up with some dramatic predictions about governance, PMOs and the accountable PM. Is he a genius or a goofball? You be the judge...

It's becoming more common for different types of PMOs to emerge in the same organization, and the drivers of having multiple PMOs appear to be based on four key factors.

Executives need projects so they can deliver on commitments, and projects need executives, who control the resources and networks essential to success. This co-dependent relationship is itself a project that can be cultivated within a PMO for an organization's strategic long-term benefit.

As businesses enter the "new normal" era of economic uncertainty, program and portfolio management offices that remain tactically and administratively-focused will struggle. Successful PMOs in 2012 will move towards a strageic, holistic view that embraces agile methods and increases visibility for executives.

This writer has seen some truly atrocious project communications where the PMO seems at a loss to be able to assist. In this article, he looks at a few ways that the PMO may be able to assist in building a communications model that brings consistency without burying the PM in “dashboard hell”.

Welcome to the PMO! Does your Program Management Office have a plan for helping new project managers? More than any other function, the PMO varies hugely from one organization to the next--and even from one division to the next. That means that there will always be a ramp-up period for anyone entering as a project manager--and yet many PMOs make no allowance for this.

We seem to be moving from the “every PMO is different” model to the “PMOs fit into one of several types” model. However, since the heady days of Y2K the world has changed a lot--and created a lot of opportunities for PMOs to reinvent themselves and create a new model. This writer may be a power-crazed egomaniac, but he thinks PMOs can run the organization (if not the world).

From the Saudi Arabian MOI NIC
The history and culture of the Kingdom of Saudia Arabia posed unique challenges to the Ministry of Interior’s PMO. Like Harris Corporation, they understood the four reasons why many organizations fail to transform their Project Management cultures, and avoided these pitfalls working with OPM Experts LLC. But as a counterpoint to Harris, the NIC’s case shows how the culture can be the driver of process deployment.

Management consultants are being called on to help establish project management offices that are simply not equipped to succeed after they leave. Here are three things they’re doing wrong.

A majority of project managers say their project management offices are falling short of expectations, particularly in the areas of training, process support and executive involvement. Here are some keys to creating more effective PMOs.

The project management office has a different role in the operational team than in project teams. In general, there are two major reasons for having a PMO as part of the operational team--and it's up to the PMO to ensure that it is supporting operations instead of hindering them.

Establishing a program management office is a project in Itself. And like all projects, you need a charter that presents a clear and measurable purpose, scope, schedule, quality, budget, risks and critical success factors. Here are guidelines for creating a charter for your PMO project.

An IT transformation program at Allianz sought simpler creation and review of project information to let stakeholders resolve project issues more quickly, with more timely and detailed data. Allianz implemented BrightWork's pmPoint solution, leveraging its use of Microsoft Project and SharePoint.

New benchmark study on project management offices shows consistent, two-year trend in delivering quantifiable value, with upwards of $400,000 in savings per project.

From Harris Corporation
Harris Corporation offers compelling insights into the impacts that process can have on culture and vice versa. This organization understood the four reasons why many organizations fail to transform their Project Management cultures, and avoided these pitfalls with their PMO working with OPM Experts LLC.

PMOs might take a page from New York City’s war on crime, which produced a sustained drop in reported crime. By focusing on solutions instead of symptoms, then targeting the most serious strategic or execution-related pain points, a PMO is more likely to make a transformative impact.

PMOs: A panacea for some, a disaster for others. If like many others you anticipate a bad ending, you've come to the right place. Want some sure-fire approaches for disaster? Here are some tips on killing your PMO. (Optimists can go ahead and do the opposite...)

What should the PM know about a larger program? Should the PMO mandate a consistent level of understanding for PMs whose initiatives fall into larger program? It's time to explore the right program-level perspective for the project level manager.

While working for a small firm, a new PM was asked to go to a major company to help them integrate their IT PMOs...leading to the worst three months of his career. In this two-part article, he guides you through his experience: what he did, what he took from it and how he would do things differently.

It's important to clarify the purpose and status reporting expectations early in the project. Here, we share a sample integration management cadence for a large project or program that effectively balances the time with the administrative overhead.

Based on the best practices of winners and finalist from PM Solutions’ annual PMO of the Year award, a new book offers tips, insights and checklists for people management, performance measurement, strategic alignment, organization design and more.

Applying 30 years of domestic and international experience in IT from both the customer and provider side, Mark Perry has spent the past decade focused on developing and supporting project management offices. Here, the founder of BOT International and director of PMO Services for gantthead shares his perspective on PMOs and Scrum.

As a PMO, do you have a view on project manager certification? When people join the PMO from other areas of an organization, there is often an expectation that they will follow a certification path. So what are the options, and what should you be thinking about in determining whether your PMO should require certification?

Many PMOs are struggling to survive the cost-cutting knife, facing staff reductions and increased workloads. It is during these periods of adversity that PMO leaders must take steps to discard the PMO’s image as a cost center and recast itself into a profit center.

A new global survey indicates disparities in the measurement and effectiveness of PMOs, leaving their value a great unknown.

Trying to convince executives to implement a best-practice methodology is a recipe for failure when establishing a program or portfolio management office. Better to cultivate a PMO identity based on a thorough analysis of what executives really want. Here are some techniques to get started.

Microsoft hopes a beta release feature pack that integrates Project Server and Visual Studio Team Foundation Server will bridge project managers, software developers and different methodologies by simplifying data exchange.

When it comes to standardizing project management practices, PMOs are essential. If your organization doesn’t have a PMO, here are some ways to approach the concept. (And even if you do have a PMO, they will serve as important reminders!)