The PMO Boutique: Nothing Fits Like Custom Made

Andy Jordan is President of Roffensian Consulting S.A., a Roatan, Honduras-based management consulting firm with a comprehensive project management practice. Andy always appreciates feedback and discussion on the issues raised in his articles and can be reached at [email protected]. Andy's new book Risk Management for Project Driven Organizations is now available.

  PMO  

For the last decade or so, there has been a dramatic increase in focus on PMOs. Prior to that, there were only a handful of people talking about them, providing services to support them, or trying to guide organizations on setting up structures and approaches that actually worked—driving value for the business. Now, such services are everywhere.

There are industry groups and companies focused on PMOs. There are in-person and virtual conferences focused on providing guidance to PMOs, their leaders, and the organizations that run them. There are books, thought leadership articles, courses, webinars, podcasts, and just about any other format of communication that you can think of.

And of course, there are very many consultants who promise the ability to set up a PMO in 100 days, to turn around existing PMOs in the same timeframe, or to eliminate all waste and refocus PMOs on what really matters. There are numerous enterprise software suites that promise to help PMOs be more effective and efficient, as well as integrating them better with the rest of the project delivery environment and with the strategic planning and execution.

All of these things are tremendously valuable, and it is incredibly encouraging to see so much more time and effort being invested in PMOs. Most of the solutions, services and guidance legitimately help, if not always living up to the hype. …

Please log in or sign up below to read the rest of the article.