PMO: A Necessity for Successful Projects
January 29th, 2011 Filed under: Project Management Information System — Business Author
Project Management Office PMO is not simply an entity in organizational structure; it is the heart of all projects. It is the place where we embark our journey towards the start of the project, and it is the termination point for all projects whether successful or not.
A wise and intelligent project manager will not get going in his project without a certain degree of assistance from the PMO. The PMO is your wallet which you have to check before going shopping with your wife. If it is empty -your wallet- then you end up facing troubles. So make sure to check your PMO before moving on with your project.
PMO role can vary; it can act as assistance to project managers by providing them with templates, best practices, estimates and lessons learned. The PMO can provide help to project managers every now and then while they are managing projects. And finally the PMO can take complete control of mega projects within the organization.
A PMO with well-structured methodologies to execute and monitor projects can immensely contribute to project success, on the other hand; a troubled PMO will weaken the organizations ability to face hard times. Roles of PMO as explained by the PMBOK includes assigning project managers for the projects, prioritizing projects, authorizing resources, supplementing projects and other parts of the organization with the best practices.
But what makes a PMO a successful entity? Few reasons may be elaborated to explain how to improve the performance of the PMO. The very first factor is People; the people who work in the PMO. In order to have an efficient and powerful PMO you do not have to have the best of the best in your organization, you may have average people; they should be trained well and systematically about project management. You should also consider establishing authority levels for those working in the PMO.
The second factor is the processes it is going to control. For every phase of the project the PMO should have a definite set of activities to monitor and evaluate. If the PMO is not controlling the whole project, then it should know which activities or work packages it has to monitor to ensure adherence to right methodologies and quality standards.
The third factor is the promotion and marketing of your ideas. A lot of people have great capabilities and potentials but they do not share with the others, if you have any potentials shout out people would like to utilize any new ideas and techniques.
Finally is the Project Management Information System or PMIS. It is what I call the e-PM or the electronic Project Manager. It has all what you want to know about the project. It is a huge repository of data from all areas of the project.
How long does it take to set up PMO varies from case to case, this mainly depends on the size of the project, what is the authority intended and degree of control of the PMO. At least whether it takes few weeks or few years to set it up; you have to consider having three different phases. The first one is the base-lining where you have to look around you and see what is going on in your organization. The second phase is to adopt and deploy your PMO, and you have to consider during this phase that you continuously check the health of your PMO. And finally you should empower those people working in the PMO so they can be more creative.
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