The Project Management Office (a PMO) is the beating heart of the project function in many businesses. If you don't have a PMO you still probably have someone doing many of the things that a PMO does as they are all important for successfully managing projects.
Each PMO is as unique as the business it operates in and the projects it supports, so what your PMO does will be different to what the PMO in the company across the street does. However, they do have some things in common. Here is a list of 12 of the main things that PMO managers find themselves doing day to day. Which of these does your PMO do?
1. Project Tracking
One of the most common features shared by most PMOs is project tracking and reporting. There are lots of ways to do this but one of the most effective is for the PMO team to produce project dashboards for the current open projects. This gives everyone a high level view of what is happening and lets project managers and their stakeholders monitor status.
2. Delivery of Projects
Some PMOs will be responsible for managing the delivery of projects. For example, the project managers may report in to the PMO Director, so that all project work is managed in a central team. Project managers may report to a program manager who is also part of the PMO management team.
Many PMOs take on responsibility for project management training. This could involve technical and soft skills classes, coaching, mentoring and training on project management software tools and other applications. It might also involve training project sponsors or providing general project training to other departments.
4. Delivery of Programs
Larger PMOs may also be responsible for managing the delivery of programs. A program is a collection of related projects and some 'business-as-usual' work that all contribute to the same corporate objective. The PMO Director may manage the program manager and also oversee the program's delivery.
5. Process Development
Projects use a lot of processes, and from time to time these need to be refined. As your project management team gets larger you may need to introduce new processes too. The PMO can do this and be the custodian of the departmental processes.
6. Managing Benefits Realization
Many businesses don't do this but as a project or program is supposed to deliver benefits, PMOs can be responsible for managing the process to identify and track those benefits. This can involve setting up benefits tracking tools, making sure all the benefits in the business case are being measured somehow and helping the end users track whether they are seeing the benefits that they expected from the project.
7. Software Selection and Implementation
Selecting the right tools for the needs of the project management community is also a task that falls to the PMO. They will be involved with choosing the best project management software, implementing it and supporting it. That includes training everyone who will be using it and managing logins and passwords.
8. Governance
Governance support is something that many PMOs do. This ranges from carrying out peer reviews and audits to checking that the project schedule has the right amount of milestones on. This is a feature of most PMOs and is one of the most useful functions – even though it might seem like your PMO is being the office policeman from time to time!
Most companies will use a standard project life cycle and methodology. Even if there is nothing that formal in place most will have a set of templates or require their project managers to do things in a way that fits with other business practices. The PMO can be responsible for managing these, communicating what is required and helping project managers to achieve those standards.
10. Communications
The PMO is also often the team that handles a lot of project communications. These could go out to the wider business, particular stakeholders or just one project team. They are the experts on how things work and typically have a good knowledge of the different business areas involved so they are well placed to communicate effectively.
Their communications work could also involve maintaining the team's intranet pages and producing a corporate newsletter. This runs alongside the work they do communicating about project status through dashboards and project reports.
11. Knowledge Management
Knowledge management is about making sure that what is learned in post-project reviews is shared with other project managers. This helps the business avoid making the same mistakes twice! Sharing corporate and project knowledge like this often falls to the PMO as they can hold central records and a lessons learned log. Then project managers can consult this in the future to see what they can learn before they start their next project.
12. Portfolio Management
Finally, PMOs can manage organizational portfolios. Typically only the largest, most mature firms will be set up to do this, but you can have small companies and small PMOs successfully managing portfolios. A portfolio is a collection of projects and programs that involve an investment decision and the PMO will help executives decide if the money is being spent wisely in pursuit of the organization's strategic goals.
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