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A PMO In Action
Dr. Andrew Makar is an IT program manager and is the author of the Microsoft Project Made Easy series. For more project management advice, visit the website TacticalProjectManagement.com.
A web hosting services department had an abundance of talent and a just-get-it-done approach to projects. That wasn’t enough, not with 60 people handling about 30 projects a month. A PMO brought much needed control and visibility to the work pipeline. Not surprisingly, project prioritization and delivery improved, and quickly.
This is the second article in an ongoing series about PMO best practices.
A recent Google search on “project management office” revealed about three quarters of a million commercial links providing consulting products, tools and expertise for PMOs. Many of these links offer methods and theories for managing PMOs, but few provide insight into an actual PMO in action. Following the first installment in this series (“The PMO: Form and Function”), this article takes a look at how a real-world organization implemented an organizational PMO, and the benefits realized.
Background: The IT organization within a Fortune 500 manufacturing company has established a number of PMOs at various levels. An enterprise PMO manages strategic IT programs across business units, and program-level PMOs support IT initiatives within business functions such as Accounting, Human Resources and Manufacturing. Organizational PMOs have also emerged in response to the growing need for project and portfolio management — the …
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