The PMO Shock Absorber

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.

  Change Management   PMO  

There’s no doubt that the amount of change in projects and portfolios is extremely high these days. With the exception of the massive disruption caused by the pandemic, most organizations are dealing with more changes to their initiatives than ever before.

That’s not a bad thing—it demonstrates an increased recognition of the need to adapt and adjust to changing circumstances, evolving technologies, and the like. And it shows a growing confidence in the ability of those organizations to make those changes with minimal disruption and maximum effectiveness.

However, that doesn’t mean that this should be just accepted as the way work has to happen these days. Change must still be optimized as much as possible, and I see a critical role for PMOs in that process. I see them as organizational shock absorbers.

Controlling the impact
If you believe some of the articles about change (including some that I have written, if I’m honest), it’s easy to believe that change is happening everywhere, all the time.

But that’s generally not the case. While change is certainly common, most individual changes are only going to impact a small part of the portfolio, or one or two areas of the business.

Take an unexpected new product release from a competitor, for example. That may result in business leaders shifting priorities and transferring …

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