Demonstrating Value and Measuring Success through Planned Management

Dave Blumhorst is VP Professional Services for Daptiv Solutions. He is a seasoned executive that has run IT, professional services and finance departments.

  Business Case   PMO   Strategy  

Before getting started with any project, PMOs must identify the metrics they will be adopting to measure and demonstrate a business purpose and also to ensure that all mandates are being fulfilled. Much like their peer organizations, PMOs are well served to view metrics in two groups: business metrics and operational metrics. Business metrics measure the extent to which the PMO is fulfilling its current mission; operational metrics, often referred to as key performance indicators or KPIs, are metrics that measure how effectively the PMO is performing the processes and activities within its area of responsibility.

In addition to establishing an effective approach for both business metrics and operational metrics, it is important to establish an effective approach for understanding and assessing PMO value. As no two PMOs are the same in terms of their business-driven PMO mandate, this leads to the undeniable conclusion that there can be no pre-determined set of PMO business metrics universally suitable for all PMOs. Likewise, there can be no predetermined set of operational metrics suitable for all PMOs--though the categories of operational metrics are likely to be similar from one PMO to another.

We can, however, establish an approach for PMO metrics to keep the PMO on track. Consider the following PMO examples, which are merely four of the many different kinds of …

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