The Productive PMO

Brad Egeland is an IT/project management consultant and author with over 25 years of software development, management and project management experience leading initiatives in manufacturing, government contracting, gaming and hospitality, retail operations, aviation and airline, pharmaceutical, start-ups, healthcare, higher education, not-for-profit, high-tech, engineering and general IT.

  PMO   ProjectsAtWork  

A majority of project managers say their project management offices are falling short of expectations, particularly in the areas of training, process support and executive involvement. Here are some keys to creating more effective PMOs.

A recent survey showed that over 76 percent of major corporations have what they refer to as a project management office, or PMO. While it should be comforting that so many organizations seem to have structured project management practices in place, it is not. Why? Because another recent survey indicated that 58 percent of project managers who have worked within a PMO consider that project management office to have been ineffective at meeting the needs of the organization. And the numbers get more alarming from there. 94 percent felt that training was lacking either in ongoing training or onboarding for new project managers brought into the PMO. Another 66 percent felt that their PMO was lacking in terms of good repeatable processes and templates that are needed by the project manager to do their jobs and serve their customers well. And 47 percent felt that their company’s executive leadership had no involvement with or provided any support or backing for the project management office.

While there is no guarantee that a PMO will be successful and will become a functional and productive part of an organization, there are …

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