Project management Office

A Project Management Office (PMO) is the department or group, wherein the standards of process related to project management are defined and maintained within the organization. It strives to standardize and introduce economies of repetition in the execution of projects. Claimed to be the source of documentation, guidance and metrics on the practice of project management and execution, the Program Management Office in some organisations relates to governing the management of several related projects.

Since there is a constant demand to develop complex business environment, organisations seek new ways to reduce costs, improve processes, increase productivity, and build their bottom line. It is a difficult endeavour to manage these diverse projects along with their people, resources, technology, and communication, wherein the risks of failure is often far too high. Therefore, a need to establish a more centralised management structure for large groups of projects has become vitally important. For this purpose, establishing a Project Management Office (PMO) has turned out to be the most effective solution. The PMO provides organisations with an infrastructure of people, procedures, and tools for effective project management achieve by leveraging project management standards, allocating resources, establishing consistent performance measures, thereby reducing duplication of efforts.

Establishing an effective PMO involves many benefits. A standard framework is provided for consistently managing projects through a standard methodology while ensuring that the projects are well aligned with corporate goals and strategies. It is also required of the project manager’s responsibility to co-ordinate people, processes, and tools with one another in a structured manner in order to avoid both gaps and overlaps between projects, eliminating any chance of duplication of effort, thereby resulting in better communication, reduced project cost, improved resource management, more accountability, improved quality, better forecasting, and less overhead associated with project managers.

The following steps are involved in establishing a Project Management Office (PMO)

Enlist Executive and Management Support:

This is the first step which gains executive and management support, which relies heavily on organisational change management (OCM), since there is a requirement for potentially significant shift in organisational culture, apart from roles and responsibilities. It constitutes the foundation upon which a successful PMO must be built, regardless of the difficulties and resistance to change

Building the team via a determined structure:

The next step includes the team development through a determined structure. With each organisation bringing its own variables to consider, there is a lack of a defined template for PMO structure. In some cases, all facets of the projects are managed, including scheduling, budgeting, resourcing, human capital, oversight, and communication, while some might consider a strict co-ordination from other departments. The right structure and team members for the PMO are determined by understanding the most effective way of co-existing within the organisation and finding the right balance between the PMO, organisational culture, roles and responsibilities, and management style. The following pointers may be considered in establishing the structure and building the PMO team – Availability of resources, incorporating existing project management standards and methodologies, defining current roles and responsibilities, politics of the organisation, consideration of project size and volume and smart dealing with current project management problems.

Development and Documentation of Standards:

Following determination of PMO structure and team members, the next step involves development and documentation of the PMO standards, practices, and methodologies for project management. This enables consistency across the organisation and its portfolio of projects, which also includes a large portion of the training that projects managers and staff would receive. Standardisation is also an important part of consenting an organisation to compare various projects in order to allocate resources as and when required.

Identification of Skills and Staff Training:

The subsequent step includes identifying the proficiency levels and skill sets of project managers and staff so as to determine the required training. For this purpose, a status review of current projects is considered helpful. Majority of the training content could also be based on the standards, practices, and methodologies defined in the above step or an on-going training programme can be established. In any PMO, it is quite natural for staff members to come and go, besides the changing and evolving of organisational standards. Hence a training program will ensure that all new employees receive training on those standards and current employees remain aware of any changes.

Measurement of Success for Continuous Improvement:

After finalization of a PMO structure, project management standards are established and communicated, and resources are trained, thereby shifting the focus of the PMO to assessing and measuring success, thereby marking the initiation of progress and performance reporting based on standardised tools, templates, and methodologies. It also marks the beginning of a continuous process improvement cycle, followed by a changeover from PMO deployment to operational sustainment. Following PMO evolvement, it is vital that the project team members maintain an awareness of the metrics by which their projects have been measured as well as how the process effectiveness is determined. They must make a determined effort to identify processes which require improvement, with an immediate implementation of improvement measures once identified.

Conclusion:

Any organisation is benefitted by the establishment of an effective project management office, which manages a portfolio of projects. Therefore, while planning and building a PMO it is imperative that it is done in a manner which compliments the existing structure of the organisation. This enables the organisation to gain maximum benefit, failing which might lead to adverse effects. Considering the fact that each organisation is different, the optimal structure for the PMO must be designed based on many considerations and variables.

Project management by a PMO through consistent and repeatable standards and methodologies brings many benefits and also provides the organisation with accountability, continuity, simplified oversight, and the ability to measure the success of the project more effectively.

An effective PMO therefore acts as an accelerator for greater efficiency, since the organisation delivers an improved quality of work with fewer resources and lesser risks, thereby resulting in an organisation that will significantly improve its project success rate to a maximum exponential figure.