Ajay DixitSr. Project Manager| Excelsoft Technologies Pvt. Ltd.Bangalore, Karnataka, India
In many organizations there are PMs but no PMO, some have PMO but not effective PMs and many organizations does not know the benefits of having PMO. Apart from PMBOK definition, what are the real benefits of PMO? Can you mention what benefits you have seen in organizations having PMO setup? What are the learnings, do's and don'ts and any recommendation for effective PMO. I want to know practical opinions which are based upon the personal experiences. Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
It is not about we think. It is about your organizational needs. Functions are the way the organization answer to its environment stimulus. When the organization performs strategic analysis functions must be defined. After that you have to decide the organizational unit where those functions will be located. This is the time to decide if you will create a new organizational unit, in this case the PMO. The PMO creation is a new initiative and a new project must be started to do that. And as for any other initiative, the organizational architecture will be impacted so everything starts with an enterprise architecture gap analysis activity. Saving Changes...
Ajay DixitSr. Project Manager| Excelsoft Technologies Pvt. Ltd.Bangalore, Karnataka, India
Thanks Sergio, I agree that it is org need but, as I mentioned earlier, I need the experience of different people who has done this. I need them to share their experience on what benefits they could bring to organization by setting up PMO. Please share the experience, success, failure and improvement stories, if any. That will be helpful. Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
That is what I tried to say. I have implemented PMOs from 2002 up to date in deffirent organizations that belong to different domains. I can say it was successful because the PMO achieve the objectives definied inside the business case and that were modified along the years when the PMO growth in maturity. So, if you will use benefits that other people will say to you as a "receipt" please let me say that you will fail.
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1 reply by Ajay Dixit
May 02, 2016 2:30 PM
Ajay Dixit
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Absolutely, I know it is no one size fit all scenario. Thanks Sergio.
Saving Changes...
M. Sahir A. Shatiry, PMI-RMP, PMPSenior Hook-up and Commissioning Engineer| Petronas Carigali Sdn BhdIpoh, Perak Darul Ridzuan, Malaysia
Hi Ajay..in my organization for all this while dont have any PMO, and every single PMs, they have reporting at different organization structure in the COMPANY. In the another way, the PMs for the same company handling different kind of project for downstream oil and gas and upstream oil and gas. In the meantime, suppose if we have PMO, all the PMs reporting to PMO, which they focusing monitoring and allocated PMs for all projects in the Company regardless it is upstream or downstream. Seem the PM roles should be the same and the different will be the technical knowledge on particular industry but as PMBOK say, it is not a must for PM to have the technical knowledge. Saving Changes...
Ganesh SrinivasanGanesh PMO (PMP, PMI-SP, ITIL-F)| MNC BankChennai, India
Hi Ajay, Thanks for the post. Good Question :)
Since I work as PMO , I feel its purely business case oriented.
How well the business case is prepared for PMO position, drives the success of PMO.
Some place i heard its not happening,
PMO has got lots of flavors, Supportive , Managing, Controlling. Which mode currently you are working on ?
I expect more experts comments. Lets wait and further discuss. Saving Changes...
Ajay DixitSr. Project Manager| Excelsoft Technologies Pvt. Ltd.Bangalore, Karnataka, India
May 02, 2016 7:09 AM
Replying to Sergio Luis Conte
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That is what I tried to say. I have implemented PMOs from 2002 up to date in deffirent organizations that belong to different domains. I can say it was successful because the PMO achieve the objectives definied inside the business case and that were modified along the years when the PMO growth in maturity. So, if you will use benefits that other people will say to you as a "receipt" please let me say that you will fail.
Absolutely, I know it is no one size fit all scenario. Thanks Sergio. Saving Changes...
Ajay DixitSr. Project Manager| Excelsoft Technologies Pvt. Ltd.Bangalore, Karnataka, India
I think we all agree on the commonalities of PMO such as it is domain based, business case based etc. A PMO unit can be setup to streamline processes across teams, units, divisions, geographies to achieve strategic business objectives which may vary from domain to domain and business case to business case.
Let me a bit more specific about this thread. The only reason why I started this thread was to see how people have achieved the success and faced the challenges during their journey through PMO. Sergio, Sahir and Ganesh has put forward some interesting thoughts and given different viewpoints and scenarios. On the other hand, it is quite interesting to see Sahir's point, which may be discussed on this platform on the possibility of having a PMO, in his organization. I really appreciate if more such scenarios are put forward to understand the real life experience from different industries about the achievements, challenges, objectives and how it was met. Saving Changes...
Ajay, sorry to make this difficult for you, here is my insight...
What is the purpose of your question?
Is it for some research that you are conducting? In that case, members can state their responses in free form as they are doing now, but it may be easier for you to conduct more like a survey (using survey tools) driven by the objectives of your research.
Is it for for using for your own organization? In that case, as Sergio mentioned, you need to first develop the Business Case for (i.e. what are you trying to solve with) the PMO. Then you can ask members to comment on whether the PMO is a good way to solve the business case (or not), and specifics on how best to go about solving it.
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1 reply by Ajay Dixit
May 02, 2016 9:48 PM
Ajay Dixit
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Samuel, thanks for your reply. The idea here is to know success stories of PMs, who have been part of PMO. The ideal way of explaining can be by sharing a business case, and how it was achieved. To make it simple to understand and reply, here is one of my past experience. e.g. in one of my previous organization, having project managers were not a common practice, the business objective was to have CMMI certification to increase the sales prospects and better reach to the market. In order t achieve this, it was realized that PMs can play a crucial role in standardizing the practices and processes, enforce documentation requirements, better handling of risks, etc. etc. Since organization was doing all this but with individual flavor and preferences, it was more about bringing the discipline in to the practice and make it part of the corporate culture. So there was a need for the organization to have dedicated group who can make sure that uniformity is enforced and maintained and hence there was need to carve out PMO group and introduce PM practices, enforce processes and practices uniformly across all projects and operations. Soon benefits of having PMO were realized, as with every passing month we came close to achieving the certification and we achieved the target in eight months.
This is one business case, I am sure every one will be having something to share like this. Can those be shared on this platform? This is not a search for a solution but hearing about other business cases and how were those dealt with to achieve the strategic goals.
Saving Changes...
Ajay DixitSr. Project Manager| Excelsoft Technologies Pvt. Ltd.Bangalore, Karnataka, India
May 02, 2016 4:18 PM
Replying to Samuel Vaddi
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Ajay, sorry to make this difficult for you, here is my insight...
What is the purpose of your question?
Is it for some research that you are conducting? In that case, members can state their responses in free form as they are doing now, but it may be easier for you to conduct more like a survey (using survey tools) driven by the objectives of your research.
Is it for for using for your own organization? In that case, as Sergio mentioned, you need to first develop the Business Case for (i.e. what are you trying to solve with) the PMO. Then you can ask members to comment on whether the PMO is a good way to solve the business case (or not), and specifics on how best to go about solving it.
Samuel, thanks for your reply. The idea here is to know success stories of PMs, who have been part of PMO. The ideal way of explaining can be by sharing a business case, and how it was achieved. To make it simple to understand and reply, here is one of my past experience. e.g. in one of my previous organization, having project managers were not a common practice, the business objective was to have CMMI certification to increase the sales prospects and better reach to the market. In order t achieve this, it was realized that PMs can play a crucial role in standardizing the practices and processes, enforce documentation requirements, better handling of risks, etc. etc. Since organization was doing all this but with individual flavor and preferences, it was more about bringing the discipline in to the practice and make it part of the corporate culture. So there was a need for the organization to have dedicated group who can make sure that uniformity is enforced and maintained and hence there was need to carve out PMO group and introduce PM practices, enforce processes and practices uniformly across all projects and operations. Soon benefits of having PMO were realized, as with every passing month we came close to achieving the certification and we achieved the target in eight months.
This is one business case, I am sure every one will be having something to share like this. Can those be shared on this platform? This is not a search for a solution but hearing about other business cases and how were those dealt with to achieve the strategic goals.
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1 reply by M. Sahir A. Shatiry, PMI-RMP, PMP
May 06, 2016 4:55 PM
M. Sahir A. Shatiry, PMI-RMP, PMP
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well said on this...get real experience from the rest of members.
Simplistically speaking, the PMOs I have been involved with:
* Provided an effective approach to get work done (primarily projects and programs)... increasing the probability of delivery success. This was done both directly through PMs in the PMO as well as training non-PMs
* Helped with organization of the portfolio of work to be able to manage better - prioritize, resource, govern Saving Changes...