Preeti GuptaSenior Technical Program ManagerChicago, United States
From a narrative standpoint, PMOs should tell before-and-after stories: highlight how structured governance avoided a potential delay, enabled faster cross-functional alignment, or prevented a critical risk from materializing. Framing governance as an enabler of speed and confidence, rather than control, helps leadership connect these improvements to strategic outcomes like faster time-to-market and better customer experience.
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1 reply by Lissette Indhira Pimentel Sosa
Apr 03, 2026 9:38 PM
Lissette Indhira Pimentel Sosa
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I like the before-and-after narrative approach. Framing governance as an enabler rather than control really helps connect it to business outcomes.
uLissette Indhira Pimentel Sosa/u Project management offices can use qualitative performance indicators such as stakeholder satisfaction, quality of decision-making, adherence to policies, responsiveness to changes, and success stories or lessons learned to assess the non-financial impact of governance. uLissette Indhira Pimentel Sosa/u you are more active congratulation Saving Changes...
It depends on the context. For example, you can measure customer satisfaction before and after a project—this isn’t financial, but it’s still measurable. In other cases, success may be binary, such as completing a wheelchair ramp: it doesn’t need to be quantified, it simply needs to be delivered. All of these success criteria should be clearly defined and agreed upon during the project charter phase. Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
Business Analyst is accountable for that mainly to create the business case. First thing is to identify Critical Success Factors. Taking a framework based on von Clausewitz book you can divide them into areas: Industry, Position, Environment, Organization, Stationary. With that on hand define the benefit for each area taking into account Tangible, Intangible and Potential. You can find more on that in the PMI´s guide for benefit management. Thanks the generative AI this work is more "easy" to do.
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1 reply by Aaron Porter
Apr 02, 2026 9:41 AM
Aaron Porter
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I think there’s a distinction worth making between project-level value and PMO-level value. Business Analysts typically support the business case for individual initiatives, but a PMO’s value is tied to how it improves system-level performance - things like decision speed, delivery predictability, and portfolio alignment. If outcomes expected from a PMO aren’t clearly defined by company leadership, PMO leadership often has to step in and translate organizational needs into measurable capabilities and success signals for the PMO. Some companies might involve BAs at the PMO level, but not all do. The same goes for the role of project managers in a PMO - they're making sure their projects deliver the project value a BA might have helped define and providing information that someone else may use to illustrate how the PMO is delivering organizational value.
What was the PMO chartered to deliver? If the PMO is not chartered to produce defined outcomes, the problem isn't intangible value, it's unbounded expectations. ROI comes from linking outcomes to business impact, followed by measuring and monitoring impact over time.
Before identifying metrics, I would make sure the PMO has a charter. If it doesn't, create one. If it does, validate it. Identify business priorities, constraints, and the problems that need to be solved. Clearly articulate what the PMO is expected to improve and how to measure it.
Does improving culture and collaboration mean fewer conflicts, faster decision, better cross-functional coordination, less rework, issues raised earlier, higher throughput, or variance between planned and actual outcomes? All of the above or something else? Vague expectations, like improving culture or collaboration, need to be translated into operational terms. Only then can you present the data and tell the story - because you need both - to be able to demonstrate value.
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1 reply by Lissette Indhira Pimentel Sosa
Apr 03, 2026 9:38 PM
Lissette Indhira Pimentel Sosa
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This is key, if expectations aren’t clearly defined, it becomes impossible to show value. Translating things like “culture” into observable outcomes makes a big difference.
Business Analyst is accountable for that mainly to create the business case. First thing is to identify Critical Success Factors. Taking a framework based on von Clausewitz book you can divide them into areas: Industry, Position, Environment, Organization, Stationary. With that on hand define the benefit for each area taking into account Tangible, Intangible and Potential. You can find more on that in the PMI´s guide for benefit management. Thanks the generative AI this work is more "easy" to do.
I think there’s a distinction worth making between project-level value and PMO-level value. Business Analysts typically support the business case for individual initiatives, but a PMO’s value is tied to how it improves system-level performance - things like decision speed, delivery predictability, and portfolio alignment. If outcomes expected from a PMO aren’t clearly defined by company leadership, PMO leadership often has to step in and translate organizational needs into measurable capabilities and success signals for the PMO. Some companies might involve BAs at the PMO level, but not all do. The same goes for the role of project managers in a PMO - they're making sure their projects deliver the project value a BA might have helped define and providing information that someone else may use to illustrate how the PMO is delivering organizational value. Saving Changes...
I think the challenge isn’t that these outcomes are intangible.
It’s that we try to measure them directly instead of measuring what they change.
Culture and collaboration don’t show up as ROI on their own.
They show up in how the system behaves differently.
Faster decisions. Fewer escalations. Less rework. Clearer prioritization. More predictable delivery.
So instead of asking, “How do we measure culture or collaboration?” I’ve found it more useful to ask:
“What improved because they improved?”
For example:
If collaboration improved, did cross-team dependencies resolve faster? If culture improved, did decision latency decrease? If governance improved, did we reduce variance between planned and actual outcomes?
Those are measurable.
The second piece is narrative.
Because PMOs don’t just generate outcomes—they reduce risk and enable better decisions.
And a prevented failure rarely shows up in a dashboard.
So you have to make it visible.
“This initiative would have slipped by 6 weeks without X dependency intervention.” “This decision was made in 2 days instead of 2 weeks because the governance path was clear.”
ROI in this space isn’t about forcing intangible things into financial metrics.
It’s about translating them into observable system improvements and then connecting those improvements to business impact over time.
If you do that well, the value stops being intangible.
It just becomes visible.
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2 replies by Ariel Alvarez and Lissette Indhira Pimentel Sosa
Apr 03, 2026 9:40 PM
Lissette Indhira Pimentel Sosa
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I agree with this a lot. The shift from measuring the concept to measuring its impact is what makes the value actually visible.
Apr 22, 2026 12:56 PM
Ariel Alvarez
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As someone in their somewhat earlier stages of this type of work, my challenge has been developing the best way to capture this narrative piece, which I agree is so important to articulating the value and impact.
What ways have you captured this information from the stakeholders implementing the interventions/work when not everyone is necessarily looking at their work deliverables beyond completion and tying it to impact?
I've had conversations and taken the time to meet with colleagues to identify the information for these types of narrative statements (“This initiative would have slipped by 6 weeks without X dependency intervention.”, “This decision was made in 2 days instead of 2 weeks because the governance path was clear.”) but I'm curious to know if you recommend any other useful methods that have helped make the intangible visible. Thank you!
PMOs demonstrate ROI on intangible outcomes by translating cultural and collaborative improvements into measurable delivery performance, time savings, risk reduction, and decision quality. Through baseline comparisons, proxy metrics, stakeholder confidence data, and avoided-cost analysis, PMOs link “soft” outcomes to hard business value such as predictability, speed, and reduced failure risk.
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1 reply by Lissette Indhira Pimentel Sosa
Apr 03, 2026 9:42 PM
Lissette Indhira Pimentel Sosa
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Well said, linking these outcomes to things like predictability, speed, and risk reduction is what makes them easier to explain and defend.
Program Manager| HARPER SRLSanto Domingo / Distrito Nacional, Dominican Republic
Apr 01, 2026 3:38 PM
Replying to Preeti Gupta
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From a narrative standpoint, PMOs should tell before-and-after stories: highlight how structured governance avoided a potential delay, enabled faster cross-functional alignment, or prevented a critical risk from materializing. Framing governance as an enabler of speed and confidence, rather than control, helps leadership connect these improvements to strategic outcomes like faster time-to-market and better customer experience.
I like the before-and-after narrative approach. Framing governance as an enabler rather than control really helps connect it to business outcomes. Saving Changes...
Program Manager| HARPER SRLSanto Domingo / Distrito Nacional, Dominican Republic
Apr 02, 2026 9:31 AM
Replying to Aaron Porter
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What was the PMO chartered to deliver? If the PMO is not chartered to produce defined outcomes, the problem isn't intangible value, it's unbounded expectations. ROI comes from linking outcomes to business impact, followed by measuring and monitoring impact over time.
Before identifying metrics, I would make sure the PMO has a charter. If it doesn't, create one. If it does, validate it. Identify business priorities, constraints, and the problems that need to be solved. Clearly articulate what the PMO is expected to improve and how to measure it.
Does improving culture and collaboration mean fewer conflicts, faster decision, better cross-functional coordination, less rework, issues raised earlier, higher throughput, or variance between planned and actual outcomes? All of the above or something else? Vague expectations, like improving culture or collaboration, need to be translated into operational terms. Only then can you present the data and tell the story - because you need both - to be able to demonstrate value.
This is key, if expectations aren’t clearly defined, it becomes impossible to show value. Translating things like “culture” into observable outcomes makes a big difference. Saving Changes...
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