I believe that PMO must help the PM, define the templates and be the methodology guardian, provide the quality assurance events and contents, track the main PM activities...and tasks like these. Saving Changes...
Depending on the type of organization, the role can be different. Anyway, the ones that you mentioned, can be part of PMO's responsibilities. Saving Changes...
Senior Projects Manager | Field & Marten AssociatesNew Westminster, British Columbia, Canada
Jarlei
PMOs can take on different roles in an organization from Strategic to Directive and Supportive. It depends on so many factors.
Each of the above mentioned 3 roles have some responsibilities in common but a decent chunk is not and is role specific.
RK Saving Changes...
Thomas WalentaGlobal Project Economy ExpertHackenheim, Germany
Jarlei,
a PMO has a business reason, brought forward by its sponsor, who perceives a problem in the environment of the organization's projects.
These reasons can be narrowly or broadly defined and depend on the pain the sponsor is feeling. Examples I have seen, it could be the time and stress from escalations, the insecurity about the status of the portfolio, the lack of alignment in staff, staff attrition, and many more.
A narrowly defined problem may be solved in a year, others may take longer, some surveys show that the average lifetime of a PMO is about 2 years. Older PMOs continuously look for new problems to solve and sponsors interested in solving them.
According to the needs of your department or organization, the PMO may assume a different role:
*Supportive: Provides support in the form of templates, best practices, access to information, on-demand expertise.
*Controlling: Enforces compliance to Organizational practices through Project Management frameworks or methodologies. Has moderate control over projects.
*Directive: It has very high or full control over the projects by providing resources and support to manage them. Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
Organizations are open and adaptive systems which interact with the environment responding to stimuli and creating stimuli. The way they interact is through functions/procedures. Function/procedures are key components into the strategy and the strategy is defined to achieve three key goals: survive, growth, develop. Then, when strategy is defined it is needed to decide the functions/procedures to use and it is needed to decide where those functions/procedures will be located. For example, into a new business unit called PMO (Project Management Office). This is the key function or reason for existence for each business unit inside the organization. Saving Changes...
The role of a PMO depends on the type of organization, its culture, and the projects & goals to be done.
For my experience some people that doesn’t really know about project management think PMO is just an office for people criticizes the work done for others with no contributions on the results.
As a project manager I believe the PMO must be defined considering the real context of the organization and the expectations of the value to be met by the core business. Also is important to remember that a PMO by itself needs to grow this mean it’s not the same role when start than when it has some time interacting with the people and projects.
A PMO must measure the work in progress (KPI, OKR), participate on the goals definition and as a QA specialist, interact with the people (business, technical, users, customer, others), estimate future results, define actions, give opinion in other words be an active part of the project team with the support of the managerial levels. Saving Changes...
Robert McMartinPMO Manager| Hanwha Defence AustraliaSouthbank, Vic, Australia
I can safely say reading the responses, that your PMOs are expected to die, over the next few years. You are not adding much value. Reporting can be done by anyone, likewise performance measurement. If the PMO cannot bring real value add to the project management within the company it sill not survive.
A PMO should have three purposes Governance and Structure - to ensure that all projects are using the same tools and being measured by the same metrics and that these rules and tools are being applied on every project, Competence - ensuring that the Project Management team are trained and capable of doing their jobs, that the right project has the right project manager and that you are developing project staff for future roles, not just PMs but schedulers as well, and the third element is Risk - project management is all about risk management and Project Managers need to be aware of all the risks that can affect the projects and the PMO must be the central point for all risks management across the projects.
These add value, not just churning out templated documents and a few monthly reports. Saving Changes...
Peter RapinSubject Matter Expect; Project Delivery| Independent ConsultantOntario, Canada
How I see the PMO is of little importance. What is critical is the structure and role of the PMO as defined by the organization. Is it advisory (influence and recommendation)? Does it have authority (provide directives, undertake audits, evaluate and reward)? Is the PM part of the PMO? Is the PMO internal? Does the PMO include major stakeholders? Dose the PMO include all project assigned staff?
Possible types of PMOs:
1) Supportive: This kind PMO is less about direct control and more about influence. They act like more of a consultant, advising project managers, teams, and individual contributors alike on best practices without having the authority to tell anyone what to do.
2) Controlling: PMOs that fall in this category use direct control to implement best practices. They have means of forcing compliance to their guidelines, whether that’s directly or through other leaders in the organization.
3) Directive: These PMOs don’t worry about influence or enforcing compliance. Instead, they take direct control of an organization’s projects.
Some may consider a PMO to be the PM and support staff.
Bottom line - you define what you mean the role to be and lay it out so all can relate to it. Saving Changes...
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