Omar JabbarProject Management and Digital Transformation Consultant| OGreen IT Service Inc.Ontario, Canada
It's often challenging when PMO Managers lack a clear understanding of project management principles. This can lead to unrealistic expectations and poor resource allocation, ultimately jeopardizing project success.
How to Manage a Project with an Inexperienced PMO Manager ?
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Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
I am assuming that PMO means Project Manager Office. How a new business unit is created inside an organization? By selecting a place where functions/process that will be part of the organizational strategy will be located. You can call the buisness unit "PMO". Then, the important thing is what functions/process have been selected. Adding to that, all related to methods/frameworks and tools which will support those process/functions have to be selected. I mean, is not a matter of project management principles. It is a matter to select what it is valuable in terms that a project is just a component to create solutions. Saving Changes...
Omar Jabbar Thanks for this question. You for asking such a question. I once had a similar experience, but this time, in a school system where the program manager lacked the on-site experience required for the job while working with students in remote communities. The manager has never visited the site, but she has been managing the situation based on her experience decades ago at a local community college. I educated the program manager by telling stories; I shared similar scenarios and how we handled them in the context of the communities we serve. That's the polite way to educate your manager. You might also refer the manager to the lesson learned register or repository.
Hope this helps! Good luck!
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Luis BrancoCEO| Business Insight, Consultores de Gestão, LdªCarcavelos, Lisboa, Portugal
This situation is more common than many organizations admit, and the issue is rarely “inexperience” alone. When a PMO Manager lacks solid project management fundamentals, the real problem is governance.
A PMO is a decision-shaping system. Authority without sufficient understanding of scope, risk, dependencies, and lifecycle thinking will inevitably produce unrealistic expectations and poor resource allocation.
Managing a project in this context requires deliberate clarity:
Clearly distinguish authority from accountability.
Make decision logic visible through facts, risk exposure, and capacity constraints.
Establish explicit escalation paths and decision thresholds, not informal alignment.
An underprepared PMO Manager is not an individual failure. It reflects how the organization appoints and enables its governance roles.
Authority without competence is not neutral. It actively creates risk. Recognizing this is the first step toward a PMO that truly enables project success rather than unintentionally undermining it. Saving Changes...
Like Sergio, I'll assume you are referring to a situation where an experienced project manager is working under (either with a formal or informal reporting relationship) a PMO manager who is not experienced.
This happens more often than we'd like where someone is promoted into a leadership role without sufficient qualifications to succeed in that position.
The first question is how self-aware and open to feedback is the individual? If they are aware of their limitations and willing to learn then while you may be required to report to them, you can coach them in the process. If they make an unreasonable ask you can help them understand the impacts on you and other stakeholders of those demands.
It is a lot tougher if they are not self-aware or not open to feedback. In such cases, you need to manage them like any other potentially hostile stakeholder using your influence with other senior stakeholders to contain the damage they can do.
Program Manager| HARPER SRLSanto Domingo / Distrito Nacional, Dominican Republic
This is a tough but very real situation. Making the work visible and concrete can help you: use facts, risks, dependencies, and capacity data to anchor conversations, not opinions. That helps shift discussions from expectations to realities. When the PMO manager is open, I take a coaching-by-doing approach, explaining trade-offs, walking through impacts, and sharing lessons learned in context. When they’re not, I focus on protective governance: clear documentation, decision logs, and escalation paths to avoid silent risk. Ultimately, you can’t “fix” an inexperienced PMO alone, but you can reduce damage by bringing clarity, structure, and transparency into every decision. Saving Changes...
Oleksandr DogrykDirector of Operations| Globberry LLCKyiv, Ukraine
If I understand the situation correctly, you are acting as a Project Manager under an incompetent PMO director. And your main concern is the successful delivery of your own project.In such a situation, I would try two ways to bring in external power :
1) Refer to PMI standards/best practices — but this is most likely to be ineffective due to the classic “I’m the boss, you’re the fool” situation.
2) Enlist the support of the business sponsor/client who owns the project outcomes. This will provide arguments from a business perspective and escalate the discussion about whether a particular decision is right or wrong to the level of the PMO director vs. the business director.
Then you will need to describe each proposed decision in terms of its impact on the business and the project results, and together (with the sponsor) you will likely be able to change something in order to achieve success.
Project & PMO Manager | Research & Enterprise Mentor| GFB HoldingSouth America, Brazil
Managing a project with an inexperienced PMO Manager requires a strategic and proactive approach. First, understand the origin and limitations of this inexperience, focusing on their potential strengths in other areas rather than just their deficiencies. Next, compensate for these gaps by elevating internal project governance with robust methodologies and data-driven, transparent communication. Utilize your team to distribute responsibilities and support the PMO Manager through informative briefings and subtle reinforcement of best practices. Strengthen your own influence by demonstrating value and strategic leadership, transforming a challenge into an opportunity for project and organizational growth. Saving Changes...
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