PMOs are often viewed by project managers as an extra burden being imposed upon them as opposed to a useful resource. PMOs, in theory, should facilitate that procedures be adhered to and followed by project managers. In reality however, there is a steady stream of disjointed emails announcing revisions to procedures and the end result is chaos: nobody knows if they are using the most current prescribed method and everyone [PMOs and PMs] is frustrated by the experience.
What is needed is a solution that would allow one to author and revise procedures and then easily communicate with those that have been tasked with following them. Ideally, it should be of a collaborative nature such that the real-life, real-time knowledge of PMs is exploited and incorporated into procedures such that they are continually updated and available. My experience demonstrates that baseline procedures established by PMOs are fine. However, if they do not continually incorporate feedback from those that use them, they quickly become stale and nobody uses them.
Ideally, the solution I am looking for will have feedback and auditing mechanisms to enable the tracking and managing of constantly changing procedures in real-time with minimal overhead. Project Managers should *immediately* know of changes and should *not* be able to use old procedures.
Word and email no longer cut it. Is there a better [cost-effective] way for PMOs to communicate with PMs without being perceived as an added burden?
The solution to this very problem is a vendor product called Processes On Demand, by BOT International. We had all of the problems and issues that you so well described. We looked at several alternatives and purchased Processes On Demand over a year ago. Processes On Demand provides project processes and templates, PMO policies and dashboards, and features for administration and integration to PPM tools like Project Server and collaboration platforms like SharePoint. We are very happy with Processes On Demand and I would recommend it for any PMO or project organization. - Anne Barks Saving Changes...
