The PMO Decision: Should You?

Mike Donoghue is a member of a multinational information technology corporation where he collaborates on the communications guidelines and customer relationship strategies affecting the interactions with internal and external clients. He has analyzed, defined, designed and overseen processes for various engagements including product usability and customer satisfaction, best practice enterprise standardization, relationship/branding structures, and distribution effectiveness and direction. He has also established corporate library solutions to provide frameworks for sales, marketing, training, and support divisions.

  Governance   PMO  

Assuming you don’t have a PMO, do you think you have what it takes to create one? What has prompted you to consider the possibility? Are you feeling as if you have a large number of projects that are independent of each other--perhaps even spinning out of control--and with no real direction in how they are working toward a common good?

Even if quantity isn’t the issue, do you still think you need some kind of governing body to oversee everything and weed out those projects that simply aren’t necessary? Projects also represent your organization’s vision--a look to the future. Are the projects in your portfolio really working toward that vision and the time yet to come?

Responding “yes” to any one of these questions may cause you to think that having a project management office is a great idea, but you should put a little soul searching into the effort to really determine if you are ready for it.

Not everyone is able to take on the prospect of a PMO. Your current method of organizing projects may be more of the “as you need it” approach--not really very effective. But to begin this process of determining the necessity of putting one in place, you should examine the following issues to see if they are present in your organization:

• Do you have a tendency to have several simultaneous projects going at full speed …

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