So Where Do I Start? Building The Effective PMO

Mark Mullaly is president of Interthink Consulting Incorporated, an organizational development and change firm specializing in the creation of effective organizational project management solutions. Since 1990, it has worked with companies throughout North America to develop, enhance and implement effective project management tools, processes, structures and capabilities. Mark was most recently co-lead investigator of the Value of Project Management research project sponsored by PMI. You can read more of his writing at markmullaly.com.

 

One of the greatest challenges that we face as we are tapped to develop a PMO capability is the not-so-rhetorical question, "Where do I start?" As some of my earlier columns have discussed, there are as many different interpretations of the purpose and role of the PMO as there are companies--and arguably, probably a few more. While the stock consulting answer "It depends" is tempting here, it doesn't necessarily provide a whole lot of value.

The best advice that I can give anyone as they undertake the development of a PMO is this: treat it as you would any other project. It is, in fact, one of the more complex projects that any of us will manage. The PMO brings the dimensions of process, structure, organization, tools and business transformation into one highly visible, strategically important initiative. Because of this complexity, it is easy to get bogged down in a …

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