Today I attended a customer presentation on their PMO and that got me thinking about how just a few years ago I was asked to establish something like it. I now find myself reflecting on that experience, the experience of my customer and on how ThinkWRAP approaches the problem.
There still does not seem to be any one universally agreed upon definition of what a Project Management Office is, and there likely won’t be one. PMO means different things to different people, and I now accept that that is how it should be. Differences in purpose, scope and orientation are both necessary and desirable. I observe however that acceptance and reliance on the PMO are obstacles we seem to have overcome.
PMOs are being established and senior project management positions are being staffed in recognition that project management is essential, and that businesses need these capabilities to be successful. Most organizations are still a long way from attaining the same level of maturity of their project management that they have of other disciplines like Finance or HR. It’s not yet quite there yet but it’s well on the way.
There is still work to do in terms of developing a mature and effective project management capability and I maintain that this is an important function of the PMO. For many organizations an investment in developing project management has been made but for these the focus must be placed on making sure that capability is permanently embedded. You can’t just build a process, publish it, provide some training and call it done. The discipline must become entrenched. Done right we will in time reach a point where the capability becomes embedded and executive support and reinforcement are no longer required. The real stumbling block is determining what accountability the PMO carries. Once that hurdle is crossed the rest falls into place rather nicely.
So what does this mean for the ThinkWRAP PMO? The focus of our PMO is in doing the work by providing hands-on support in the actual management and delivery of projects. For us this may take a number of forms. It might be coordinating the project planning, estimating, financial planning, risk assessment, project governance, initiation process, resource planning, and or actual project delivery. The development of approaches and the selection of technologies must be left to the project teams themselves but the PMO has a role to ensure that collaboration is encouraged, that previous learnings are applied and that re-usable componenents or knowledge is leveraged.
Our PMOs will address all of these dimensions. The focus may be on a specific client project portfolio, product management or enterprise projects within an organization. The measure of our PMO will be the bottom-line value that it contributes toward getting projects done.
