What Was it Like Before the PMO?

Matt is an IT PMO Director for ABM Industries in San Francisco. He is an experienced leader in Information Technology and project management, with a strong passion for both.

  PMO  

With the economy down and a very slow recovery in front of us, companies are still on the lookout for ways to cut costs. The recent meteoric rise in popularity of the Project Management Office has some companies asking why a PMO is necessary and what value it provides. A common reaction when PMO leaders face this question is to describe the services they provide today and those that they plan to provide in the future. This approach makes sense, but doesn’t always provide a compelling argument for companies facing financial hardships. In addition to describing current and future value, it is worthwhile to look back at what project management was like before the PMO.

I had the opportunity to do just that after a recent conversation with my friend, a computer technician, who doesn’t know much about project management or PMO. In the middle of my explanation about the rapid growth in popularity of the PMO, she interrupted to ask a simple question that I’ve been asked numerous times before: “Why do companies need a PMO?” Then she followed with, “Since the PMO was a fairly recent phenomenon and companies did just fine before they implemented a PMO, it stands to reason they would do just fine without one.”

I knew that typical, stock answers about the value of the PMO weren’t going to convince my friend. She had an excellent …

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