Where should the role of IT program managment reside ?
Marion CotterillIT Programme Manager| nib health fundNewcastle, Nsw, Australia
If a business has a separate IT and PMO business unit. Should the role of IT program managment reside within IT or PMO? Saving Changes...
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Marion CotterillIT Programme Manager| nib health fundNewcastle, Nsw, Australia
Over the last year our PMO has achieved a high profile in the business. Some of the success has been due to having a program manger role sitting between IT and the PMO. With thoughts to make this role permanent in the business , should the role reside in IT or the PMO? Saving Changes...
Russell GeakeProject Management Consultant| Deciduous Partners LtdLostwithiel, Cornwall, United Kingdom
Marion - interesting situation. One has to ask "why change it?" If the role currently sits between IT and PMO and is working well is there a benefit of maintaining this as a neutral position serving the corporate interest.
On the other hand - the PMO has gained a high profile - where would you like it to be? If I were the Program Manager I might be happier sitting in the spotlight for a while acheiving further improvements.
Then ask another question - is it the role or the individual that has helped (i.e. what if that person leaves)? Have they brought IT knowledge to the PMO or vice versa? Does their presence in IT mean that what the PMO ask for it gets?
Try to determine which department adds greater value to the role, and the organisation and then what the most important relationships are. That will guide your solution.
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Depends on what sort of role the PMO is playing. I did some research around this last year and found that there were basically three types of PMO;
• Passive in that they provide template, tools etc but do not mandate their use.
• Controlling in that they not only provide the templates, tools etc but also mandate their use and audit projects to ensure compliance
• Delivery, the PMO not only provides the templates, tools etc but also the project managers to run the projects ensuring higher standards and greater compliance.
Sometimes a PMO can operate in all three ways depending on the type or size of the project.
Consider "fit-for-purpose" value the PMO provides to projects.
The majority of the business has a separate IT dept\unit, they provide the operational IT required to ensure the organisation's IT's functionality is up to date, and never compromised. The PMO's come and go! what I mean by that is depending on the organisational demand many PMO's could be set-up, these are temporary and will disperse once the business project[s] have been delivered, this is my own personal experience having worked for one of the largest utility companies in the UK. It just depends what the role of the PMO is defined as and whether it should remain on a permanent basis basically managing the portfolio of projects or whether to set-up PMO's for specific long term project running for a few years - there is a difference I think. In my opinion the IT function must always remain completely separate to any PMO. Saving Changes...
Hi Just picking up on Vasoula has said yes there are two flavours of PMO, Let's call them "Working PMOs" and "Enterprise PMOs."
The working PMO as Vasoula has stated is a support office for a specific program or large project and is a temporary unit, whilst the Enterprise PMO is the office responsible for the enterprise portfolio of programs and projects and is a permemnat unit within the organisation. As an enterprise function it is across all projects, business and IT and helps prioritise project and manage resource planning. Saving Changes...
