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Knowledge Assets - PM – Food for Thought
PM – Food for Thought: Introduction to “PMO”
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Project Management Office “PMO”
By
Mr. Nitin Shende - PMP® (PMI®-USA), IPMA-D, DBM (ICS, UK), Qualified (ISO) Lead auditor
Organizations are expanding worldwide and mergers - acquisitions have become buzzword, to be precise the ‘mantra’ of growth. It has created a ‘need’ and ‘urgency’ for creating project management culture and methodology wide and across. Enterprises are looking towards the PMO as a participative facilitator of organizational effectiveness. Strategic initiatives are managed through various schemes and it is observed that majority of them revolve around the nucleus called Project Management Office (PMO).
Let’s take a quick look at “Which ‘needs’ are exactly directing everybody towards PMO?”
Sources of Need :
 Enterprises involving broader interactions of processes and the emerging technologies
Increased inter dependencies and intricacies within projects
Persistence for innovation
The speed of innovative changes
The pace of evolution of technologies
Better and faster communication modes within key stakeholders
Increase in shorter version of projects
Increased volumes of projects
Complexity of projects
Optimum utilization of resources
Events of Need :
Maintaining Cost baselines of the projects
Maintaining schedule baselines of the projects
Achieving expected margins of the projects
Availability of Knowledge assets across the organization
Continuous process improvement across the organization
Mentoring platform to enhance their efficiencies of resources
Up-to-date Tools to be used in projects
Health check of projects across the organization
Availability of analyzed historical data base
Co ordination of inter dependencies within projects
The list of both “Sources” and “Events” can easily be longer than this, constantly orbiting at different distances around the nucleus of PMO!
Caution : Before going in for such an ‘Unit’ within your organization switch ON an ‘amber light’, think for a while, look at your right & left and be sure of what you are looking at. Define your objectives clearly prior to stepping forward to set up a PMO.
Fundamental brainstorming must be conducted for “Where do you stand today? What do you require? “Project / Program/ Portfolio” Management Office”. Each one of them has different Objectives and hence its scope and role and responsibilities to be performed.
Project Management Office :
This is a foundation level of project management maturity level. When organizations do not have existing standard project management methodologies or the processes are more of ‘evolved’ rather than ‘standardized’.
The primary focus will be on gaining control of the essentials of project management. The Project Management Office can provide project management knowledge, skills and process area skills needed for effective completion of the project.
Project Management Office :
A second stage of organizational maturity, in project-oriented management acknowledges that, providing management to related projects achieves more than managing projects individually.
Treating projects with similar key attributes as program, offers the ability to leverage control and monitoring elements that the project management approach applies to single projects, but benefits may be disproportionate. In Program management, shared resource management and its monitoring controlling becomes more powerful levers to achieve enhanced performances.
Portfolio Management Office :
Portfolio management is usually driven top-down in the enterprise. The objective that justifies the effort and focus at the top management levels is naturally the one that becomes basic strategic input for the enterprise business and its direction.
Although portfolio Management syncs with Project and Program initiatives, the skills and style of the Portfolio Management Office requires to have a specific Business oriented zest and must be pursued at the very top level management.
Scope of this article is limited to “Project Management Office”.
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