From the Trenches: Enterprises Speak Out on the State of PMOs

 

Earlier this year, we polled more than 60 enterprises that have been using Daptiv to track some of the emerging trends in the industry.

Our survey asked about integration plans, budget levels, as well as corporate structure. We had customers from a wide variety of industries including financial services, healthcare and business services. Here are a few interesting results from the research:

1. Business PMOs are prevalent and reporting to the C-Suite

Back in November, we predicted that more enterprise project management offices (EPMOs) will report to the CIO as PPM best practices are taken out of IT and into the business units. Our survey results show that 33% of the respondents have their PMO or EPMO reporting directly to the CIO, with others reporting to C-Level executives including the COO (19%), CEO (11%) or CFO (8%). This indicates the emergence of the PMO as a vital role in shaping not just IT, but overall business strategy.

2. Integration is making PPM the linchpin of strategic decision making

Nearly half of the survey respondent said they have or are planning integration to enterprise systems like ERP, SAP, Oracle, etc. This enables users to gain better insight, management and control over business processes and provides a single view of project costs. Integrating PPM with IT operations tools and application development tools (including agile tools) is also becoming more common and allows enterprises to integrate real-time project data and support a variety of project management methodologies.

3. PMO budgets are increasing

In a potentially good sign of business investment, many Daptiv customers are seeing their budgets increasing in order to take on more projects. Out of all the Daptiv customers responding to the survey, 37% reported that their PMO budget would be increasing, some by as much as 20% or more. Only 6% of those surveyed reported that their budget would be decreasing in 2011.

Let us know what you think – is this consistent with what your organization is seeing?