PROGRAM/PROJECT MANAGEMENT OFFICE (PMO) DEVELOPMENT
What is a PMO? Do you already have one? Do you need one?
A Project Management Office (PMO) is a specific department in an organization responsible for maintaining the standards of project management within that organization. The role of PMO in organizations vary based on the type of organization and program/projects that need to be implemented or delivered. It is generally referred to as a Program Management office if the function includes managing a variety of related programs for a common goal. It is called a Project Management Office if it manages a large project with multiple disciplines and multiple execution elements. The most common domain of work or role of PMO includes the following:
Project support
The first and foremost role of the PMO is to provide necessary project management support in the form of guidance to program/project managers (PM) of an organization. PMO is also responsible for coaching new PMs on various ways an organization can run projects.
Poject management process
The central role of the PMO is to ensure development and implementation of appropriate business processes, standards and common practices. The PMO helps in creating a common set of purpose, values, traditions, and templates for managing program and projects. Standardization refers to ease of transfer of managers and personnel between different or multiple projects as well as reducing learning curves of new employees. Through creation and implementation of project management templates and principles, the assigned tasked will be completed within budget and schedule.
Data gathering
The PMO is responsible for gathering of key project indicators (KPI). These will be established in the program/project management plan (PMP), revised and added to depending on the development of the task. These KPI will be used to evaluate the state of the program/project which are than communicated via reports on the health of the program/project to stakeholders.
Portfolio management
A program PMO is responsible for an organizations’ administration of their project portfolio management (PPM). It is the responsibility of the PMO to manage and facilitate the entire process. Responsibilities include:
- Creating and maintaining a resource forecast and capacity plan.
- Capture of project demands and ensuring each of those have enough relevant data to be used for evaluating that project.
- Produce and maintain a status of projects file for those that are underway and those that have requests pending review.
- Implement prioritization and scoring models for better assessment of the requests that should be approved.
- Learning about other project management concepts in the Project Management Glossary.
Do you need a PMO?
If you have decided that you need a PMO or to revamp your current PMO, please look to DCW Squared, LLC to assist you. We can restructure your current system, by auditing and evaluating your systems and staff and presenting you with a corrective action plan for self-implementation. Implementation can be enhanced by us providing a question-and-answer help line for startup of the proposed life cycle of the PMO. We can also furnish you with staff augmentation and manage the PMO.
Let us know how we can help you with your PMO needs.
