25 September 2009

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PMOs: Where They Are Going

The project management office (PMO) has been receiving a lot of attention lately. The economic downturn has had organizations taking a stern look at their bottom lines—and cutting costs wherever they could.

At some organizations, the notion that the PMO was expendable made it one of the first things to go. Other organizations, however, realized that they could capitalize on the PMO’s services and knowledge and use it to their benefit.

Consequently, the PMOs that remain are changing—taking on a more strategic role within their respective organizations.

In a special question-and-answer session on PMOs, Rommy Musch, chair of the PMI Program Management Office Specific Interest Group, discusses the changes in the ways that PMOs are being utilized. 

Do you think more organizations view PMOs as a necessity?
I think PMOs are becoming increasingly essential as their maturity advances, and I think this is because the value is seen as being one that ties strategy to delivery.

How are PMOs changing?
Now we’re getting PMOs at multiple levels of the organization. So we have them at an individual project level, or at a business unit or functional level, and also at a strategic level. I think some of this is due to growing awareness of not only programs, but also portfolio management.

The current economy is also affecting everything. To me, the effect [the economy has] can be dependent on the quality and competency of the people within and supporting the PMO. I believe there is a fantastic opportunity during this economic crisis for the PMO to stand up and really show the value-add they can give to an organization.

Are organizations doing enough to take advantage of PMOs?
It comes back to some fundamentals of making sure that the PMOs are staffed with the right type of people and that they are tasked with the right set of tasks. The reason for this is that too often PMOs are just seen as an extension of a project, and we need to evolve that way of thinking to show that PMOs can and should be more powerful and more integral in delivering what the company wants to achieve.

How can organizations assess the value of their PMO?
There are many different ways of measuring performance and PMOs. Aside from ensuring key stakeholders are receiving a regular and accurate project and program performance matrix, there’s an area that I believe is greatly lacking —benefit realization. That’s where we can get the best view of whether the value of a PMO is being received. That is where we track whether the business objectives and ROI (that was stated in the original business case) is actually realized.

For more information on the PMO, its strategic value and its shifting nature, check out The Changing Role of the PMO in the 10 July issue of Community Post.