It’s not just where the cubicles are….
Summary: The Project Management Office is responsible for ensuring that project management in an organization adds value, adheres to standards, and stays current with best practices in the project management field.
There are three kinds of Project Management Office.
- The PMO includes all of the project managers for an organization, and all projects are managed by the PMO. The PMO sets the standards and practices for project management within the organization.
- The PMO establishes and promulgates the standards and practices for project management within the organization, and trains the employees who will manage the projects. These can be in-house or contract/staff extension resources. The project managers do not have a straight line relationship to the PMO.
- A hybrid of the two – some project managers are straight-line to the PMO (and dotted-line to the project team), some are embedded in departments, some are “part time” PMs managing projects as part of their regular duties. The PMO still sets the standards, promulgates them, and trains the PMs in the organization so that there is consistent execution of projects across the company.
The common thread among these is that the PMO establishes and promulgates the standards and practices for project management across the organization. Why is this important?
Good Standards Make Good Neighbors
Standardization, generally speaking, is beneficial for a company. When it comes to hardware, for example, a standard platform allows for ease of maintenance, clarity about life-cycles for refresh and replacement purposes, and the economics of quantity purchases.
With software, standardization means support becomes easier, information is more easily interchanged, and teams can be more fluid – if the platforms are the same, team members can come up to speed more quickly even when moving from one effort to another. Clearly, the risks from rogue applications, data breaches, and system interruptions are mitigated through software standardization.
The same holds true with project management. In order to achieve the greatest benefit from project management, it’s vital that everyone is working from the same playbook. This ensures consistency of deliverables, allows for reuse of templates, and facilitates communications. As well, project managers understand what is expected of them and can be evaluated consistently.
Of course, different types of projects may require variations in the approach the PM takes – and even the methodologies used (waterfall vs. Agile, for example). The PMO should account for this, with parameters in place regarding the overall direction of projects.
Quality Control
The PMO is also responsible for continuous improvement in the standards and practices that it shares with the organization – what’s working, what needs improvement, and what may have changed in the world of project management.
The PMO is responsible for ensuring that project management continues to be a value add to the company. Project managers need to be delivering projects on time and on budget, but they should also be looking at ways to improve the execution of their projects – controlling costs, improving efficiency where possible, and generally staying a few steps ahead of issues and challenges. The PMO needs to be assessing the performance of the project portfolio continually.
We Hear Everything
There is one other function of a PMO that should not be overlooked. A PMO can and should play another important role in an organization: as a hub of information. The PMO, because of its reach throughout the company, should have its finger on the pulse of the organization. That is, the PMO should clearly understand the strategic direction, financial underpinnings, risk profile, and overall function of the company – because all of these have a bearing on project prioritization and execution. The PMO also knows what’s going on all over the organization – and that avoids duplication of effort, moving in different directions, and so on.
No matter which PMO model is employed in the company, its benefits are clear!