The Out-of-the-Box Illusion: Why PMO Tool Implementations Fail Before They Start
Paul is a management, strategy and business transformation consultant, specializing in digital transformation and program management. He has over 15 years of technology transformation experience, and several industry certifications.
“We just want out of the box. No customizations at all.”
I have heard some version of that sentence from federal agencies, state agencies, and local councils. The stated reason shifts:
- “We are only a small agency.”
- “We only have a small team working on this.”
- “We think the defaults will work for us.”
The real reason is usually simpler: they are short on money, or short on time, and “out of the box” sounds like speed.Then the solution goes in, and they touch it. The project types in the tool are not the project types they run. The default business units do not match their structure. The risk form is missing categories they have used for years. Approvals flow to the wrong people. Small projects get forced through fields designed for large ones, when those teams needed something much simpler. And the reports do not look like the reports their executives have been reading for a decade, which matters more than anyone admits at kick-off.
| Most PMO tool implementations that struggle don't fail during deployment. They fail during the assumptions phase. |
None of it should surprise anyone. Vendors build these tools generic, so that everybody can use them, and the moment a real organization touches one, changes are needed.
Out of the Box Is Not a Strategy
The setting these …
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"Less is only more where more is no good" - Frank Lloyd Wright |
