Project Management Office (PMO)

PMO definition as per PMP:

A PMO is an organized body or entity assigned various responsibilities related to the centralized and coordinated management of those projects under its domain.

Why you need PMO?

For years, IT departments have struggled to deliver projects on time and within budget. But with today’s emphasis on getting more bang for the buck, IT has to rein in projects more closely than ever. That challenge has led many to turn to project management offices (PMOs) as a way to boost IT efficiency, cut costs, and improve on project delivery in terms of time and budget.

PMOs can help organization by providing the structure needed to standardize project management practices and facilitate IT project portfolio management, as well as determine methodologies for repeatable processes.

There are three basic organizational styles for a PMO:

1. The project repository: This model occurs most often in organizations that empower distributed, business-centric project ownership, or enterprises with weak central governance. The project office simply serves as a source of information on project methodology and standards. Project managers continue to report to, and are funded by, their respective business areas.
2. The project coach model: This model assumes a willingness to share some project management practices across business functions and uses the project office to coordinate the communication. Best practices are documented and shared and project performance is monitored actively. The PMO in this model is a permanent structure with staff and has some supervisory responsibility for all projects.
3. The enterprise project management office: This model also assumes a governance process that involves the project office in all projects, regardless of size, allowing it to assess scope, allocate resources and verify time, budget, risk and impact assumptions before the project is undertaken. Funding is generally a combination of direct, budgeted allocation for baseline services and a fee-for-service charge for others.

Roles and responsibilities of PMO:

The responsibilities of the PMO vary from providing project management support to actually direct responsible for the project. The role, responsibilities and team structure of the PMO team depends on the organization needs.

·         The PMO acts as the integral stakeholder of the project and involve in the key decision making during beginning of the project, to make recommendations or to take manage to risks or terminate the project.

·         PMO also involved in selection, management and deployment of shared or dedicated project resources under its domain.

·         PMO, provide the inputs and share the expertise knowledge to prepare project carter and authorize the project charter.

·         PMO, ensure the Integrated change control system is implemented in the project effectively for the change requests.

Primary functions of the PMO:

The primary functions of the PMO is to support the project managers in variety of way as mentioned below, but are not limited to:

·         Monitor project portfolio to ensure timely updates and performance reporting process

·         Reduce cost of projects to positively impact the overall portfolio management cost

·         Provide up-to-date portfolio-level status reporting to executive management

·         Managing shared resource and dedicated project resources

·         Identifying and developing project management methodology, best practices and standards

·         Monitor compliance with project management standards, policies, procedures and templates

·         Managing organizational process assets

·         Coordinating communication across projects

·         Improve project management capabilities, knowledge, competence, and skills

Difference between Project Manager and PMO:

Role of Project Manager	Role of PMO
Focuses on specified project objectives	Focuses on program level objective and scope changes
Controls the project resources to meet project Objectives	Optimizes the use of the shared resources across all projects
Manage the constrains (Scope, Schedule, Cost and etc)	Manage the methodologies, standards, risks and  inter dependencies across projects at the enterprise level

Best practices for PMO:

·         Identify the stackholders and their roles

·         Assign the project manager early

·         Assess the qualifications and experience of the planned project team members

·         Conduct a project kickoff meeting

·         Complete a detailed work plan

·         Establish an issues control tracking system

·         Establish a regular project team review meeting schedule

·         Establish a participant update meeting schedule

·         Create and maintain an issues list

·         Track, Manage, and Obtain Approval for ALL Scope Change