A PMO – One of the Keys to Project Delivery Excellence

Project Management Offices

One of the keys to successful project delivery

Project and Programme Management offices are a vital part of a delivery focused organisation. Today’s blog post is all about getting the most value out of your PMO.

Let’s consider some of the fundamentals of a PMO:

1. Act as the teacher and examiner for your project delivery organisation
2. Drive your PPM governance method
3. Ensure that from a request entering the demand pipeline to the last benefit being realised in the benefit realisation plan, work is completed following good / best practices.
4. Provide guidance, training and assistance.
5. Control the governance process to enable the best possible outcomes and business benefits.
   
   

Is it time to spring clean your PMO?

Over time, key pieces of the process that are vital to the smooth running of the PMO may often get left behind, forgotten or worse; they become the opposite of what was intended. This can lead to the processes hampering, rather than assisting, the smooth running of the delivery engine.

There are various causes:

• The governance process becomes an inflexible monolith, never to change; without continual review and update, even the best method will eventually be outmoded
• Experienced staff may move on, removing knowledge from the PMO of what’s necessary to keep the PMO relevant to a changing environment.
• The supported business areas may change, requiring major changes to the process that the PMO is neither funded nor ready to support.
• If ongoing education and training are not provided to the delivery managers, employee turnover can reduce the capability of project and programme managers.
• New delivery approaches can reduce the governance effectiveness of a PMO and reduce its role in the portfolio.
• Ability to share screens in instant messaging and meetings

If any of these sounds familiar, it is time to consider reviewing and refreshing your PMO.

How does CPS help?

CPS’ PMO as a Service approach begins with a structured assessment of your PMO and the associated methods and standards. This enables CPS to work with an organisation to agree on what level of governance is appropriate. CPS then establish a target operating model and provide a roadmap outlining the steps needed to get an organisation from the current model to the target.

CPS – Microsoft Partner of the Year 2018 (Project & Portfolio Management) and edison365 – can help you maximise the business benefit your organisation gets out of the PMO across your whole organisation and the variety of work types that is conducted by it.