What is a PMO and What Does it Do?
By Bruce Beer, PMP:
Editor’s note: This is the first post in a series on PMOs.
PMOs are increasingly becoming the “in thing” these days, even though they have been around for many years. So this series of articles will try and answer several main questions –
- What is a PMO
- What is the Business Value of a PMO
- PMOs: Why should You Want One?
- Establishing a PMO – How Do We Do That?
- Integrating the PMO Into the Organizational Culture/Creating a PMO That Lasts
WHAT IS A PMO?
A Project (or Program) Management Office (PMO) can be considered as the coordinated project management of multiple projects – usually those within a program but can also be a Company resource to be used by all projects within that company.
OK so what do they look like and what do they do – how would you recognize one if you tripped over one?
At a high level a PMO –
- Provides guidance and support to all projects in the program or Company
- Enables successful definition, integration, acceptance and implementation of all deliverables within a program.
- Is the main mechanism for meeting customer satisfaction by providing a single point of contact for the customer (internal or external) , enabling effective communication between projects, PMO, and customers
- Provides consistency and reliability of all deliverables and processes within a program or company
- Minimizes gaps and overlaps between projects
1. Provides guidance and support to all projects in the program or Company
It provides a common approach to all projects covered by the PMO, it can provide templates for tools used on all projects so that they all have a common look and feel, it can provide guidance for projects on how to plan and implement common quality and risk management policies, and because a PMO normally contains senior PMs, the PMO can also mentor the PMs of the component projects. This will have benefits for individual PMs, the program(s), and in the longer term, the company as PMs standardize their approach to projects.
2. Enables successful definition, integration, acceptance and implementation of all deliverables within a program
Whether you are a supplier providing project services for an external customer, or you are providing project services internally to your own company, a PMO can provide a central and coordinated point for definition of all requirements, integration of deliverables from different projects or suppliers, and coordinated acceptance and implementation of the deliverables from each project and the overall program.
3. Is the main mechanism for meeting customer satisfaction by providing a single point of contact for the customer (internal or external) , enabling effective communication between projects, PMO, and customers
Having a single point of contact with the customer – whether internal or external – allows the customer access to one source for reporting progress, status of either the program or individual projects, issues, risks, and changes either at the project or program level. This will avoid the customer having to chase down the individual PMs within a program to obtain information which may then be inconsistent and even contradictory! If the customer has an issue on any of the constituent projects they know who to contact for answers or resolution.
4. Provides the basis for consistency, reliability, and reduced risk for all deliverables and processes within a program or company
Consistency within a program is a sign of professionalism, rather than having a mixture of different standards, documents, contents, processes etc. thrown together, it looks like one unified production. Having one overview of all projects and requirements enables more efficient and consistent approach to the planning, integration, and implementation of requirements with reduced overall risk. For instance, integration of the schedules from constituent projects enables a unified schedule for the whole program, and can highlight the critical path through the whole program taking into account the dependencies within individual projects to be evaluated. Integrating risk and change throughout the program can enable the impact of risk or change from one project on any other project to be evaluated and managed. Because deliverables will be more consistent and integrated at the overall PMO level, the reliability of the resulting system is likely to be improved.
5. Minimizes gaps and overlaps between projects
Just as with a project based WBS, a PMO level WBS will reduce overlaps and gaps between projects and their deliverables as viewed from the higher level. This will enable planning to be more comprehensive and complete, so reducing the opportunities for negative impacts on the key baselines.
The next blog in this series will look at the business value of PMOs, and how they can be cost justified and provide a positive ROI.
