Organization dealing with projects must have a PMO

Why To Have A PMO?

• PMO or Project Management Office (also referred to as Program Management Office) is a “Guidance Body” within an organization which guides, measures, and governs all the projects and programs within the organization. The following are the reasons why an organization dealing with projects and programs, on a regular basis, must have a PMO.
• Single window for all project initiations and governance
• All projects and programs are measured and controlled in the same way
• Comparisons across projects and programs become easier
• Standardization of templates
• Assessing the capabilities of all Project Managers and Program Managers
• Ability to create a comprehensive and meaningful dashboard for the top management to take clear and concise decisions without getting into too much details
• Helps in reduction of conflicts between cross functional teams and the project teams
• Helps align all the organizational efforts in a uniform manner towards organizational strategy
• Creates a winning organization culture by fostering a healthy competition among project teams and across organization by sharing of performance data
• Directly affects the productivity of the project personnels

Steps In Implementing A PMO

• Asses if the organization really needs a PMO
• If PMO is needed than the following steps would be taken: -
• A detailed proposal would be created giving complete and precise scope of work to be done by PM-Pulse for implementing the PMO.
• On approval of the said detailed proposal a complete needs assessments and requirements assessment would be conducted to know the current pain areas and the maturity of the existing processes, as well as the reporting and delegation structure.
• Post this assessment a detailed schedule for the implementation of the PMO in the organization would be presented to the organization clearly scoping the work of PM-Pulse and the key stakeholders of the organization in question.
• PMO implementation would be done.
• PMO would be piloted with a few selected projects to test its benefits and to ascertain that it is working the way it is intended to.
• Usually some processes would need to be created or re-engineered as necessary support to the implementation of PMO. The “Process Creation / re-engineering” is covered in a separate engagement paper.
• Post pilot adjustment the PMO would be handed over to the “Assigned Role”
• Trainings would be provided to the key stakeholders and the affected parties
• Roles and responsibilities would be altered to accommodate the functioning of the PMO within the organization.