Project Management

Meet the PPO!

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.

linkedin twitter facebook print Request to reuse this   PMO  
A few years ago, I had what could best be described as an animated discussion with the head of marketing for the company I was consulting with. They wanted to know why they hadn’t been included in the project that I was managing; I responded that I didn’t realize that they had a role. This caused a rather apoplectic response that marketing was involved in everything! (The conversation went downhill from there…)
Looking back, it was rather naïve on my part, but it’s a lesson that I have remembered. It still strikes me that, in general, organizations don’t do a very good job of promoting their projects. So maybe it’s time for a central function to handle this. Let’s call the concept a Project Promotions Office (or PPO for convenience), but I suspect that it has more to do with marketing or internal communications than it does with the traditional concept of a PMO. The more I think about it, the more I believe that many organizations can benefit from this function, so let’s explore it.
The need for promotion
There are many reasons why projects might need promoting. It may simply be a case of telling the organization about an initiative or preparing certain departments for upcoming change. At the other extreme, it may be a major product announcement that is going to take the world by storm. Fundamentally, there is no …

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

ADVERTISEMENT

Continue reading...

Log In
OR
Sign Up
ADVERTISEMENTS

"There is one way to find out if a man is honest: Ask him! If he says yes, you know he's crooked."

- Groucho Marx

ADVERTISEMENT

Sponsors