Joseph Cuschieri
A project management office (PMO) is an internal or external team who oversees programmes and projects which may include business transformation initiatives, technology development projects, reforms, product development or any other type of initiative across the organisation. A PMO is (also) usually responsible for quality control, standards and the governance of those standards to ensure consistency across the organisation. The PMO would typically have control over resources, project portfolio management, reporting, quality control, project governance and receives strategic direction including the prioritisation of projects from top management. It is in fact a good practice to have the PMO participate in executive management meetings where programme reporting and the status of projects is discussed and agreed to. The person in charge of the PMO would usually be a high-ranking officer positioned just below the senior leadership team reporting to the CEO or the Chief Operating Officer.
From experience, I have learned that having a strong PMO structure, helps you deliver better, more efficiently, on time, within budget and with the right quality standards. If you are not yet convinced why you need a PMO in your organisation, here are six reasons why its good to have one:
- Standardisation: A PMO helps the organisation to standardise the way projects are governed and executed. This is achieved through well defined processes, frameworks and tools which ensure project completion on time, efficiently and on budget,
- Accountability: One of the key benefits of a PMO is that project portfolio status is reported and communicated across the organisation on an ongoing basis hence providing visibility and clarity across the board. This builds a goal-driven culture where accountability and transparency helps teams to enhance their performance and improve the quality of their output,
- Alignment with organisational goals: One of the PMO’s key strategic functions is that of ensuring that the organisation’s project portfolio is aligned to the business goals. This is crucial to ensure that project prioritisation and budgets dedicated to projects will advance the organisation towards its business goals,
- Cost: Improved efficiency in project management and the ongoing tracking of progress and variations, improves cost efficiency and avoids unnecessary waste of money,
- Quality assurance: The PMO can help in maintaining quality assurance by offering a different perspective of project performance. The external view of the PMO can often identify areas for improvement which those individuals and teams closer to the project may not see,
- Project completion: A PMO facilitates project completion by allowing project leaders and teams to focus on execution and deliverables while the PMO handles back-office support, reporting, communications, project governance and analysis.
In a nutshell. the best place to start when considering whether or not you need a PMO is to take a good, hard look at how your company operates and see if the different functions are already working together across systems and groups seamlessly, or if they operate in silos with different systems and don’t often communicate with each other. If your company is the latter, then a PMO can definitely help you because it gets teams to work together. Furthermore, if you’re about to implement significant transformational projects or strategic changes, or the strategy your organisation is pursuing is not working, a PMO might be the right solution for your organisation.
