The Danger for PMOs in an Automated World

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.

  PMO   Portfolio Management  

In the last few years, the rate of growth in project management-related software has been incredible. Little more than a decade ago, enterprise project management software was a choice between a complex, lengthy and expensive implementation or a barely passable piece of off-the-shelf software that was likely to be rejected before it was properly configured. Today, there are any number of software suites that offer considerable flexibility, functionality, scalability and choice with very little upfront investment of time, effort or money.

However, many of the PMOs that manage an organization’s project execution functions have failed to adapt to this advancement in software. This leaves them at a distinct disadvantage, either failing to leverage all of the capability that is available to them or potentially limiting the benefits that the organization can gain with approaches that have become archaic. In this article, I want to look at how PMOs need to adapt and adjust in order to leverage these tools.

Recognizing the issues
Before we can solve any problems, we first have to recognize that they exist. A well-established PMO will have developed and refined its processes over a period of time to the point where they are as effective and efficient as possible. Regardless of whether those processes are for auditing and controlling projects or for strategic portfolio…

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