What Makes a Successful PMO?

What Makes a Successful PMO?
By Zenkara

Over the years we’ve seen some really good Project Management Offices, and we’ve seen a whole lot more which just don’t cut it.

If you’re the manager of a PMO or a concerned team member, what are some of the better traits and things to do?

  • Be clear about the services you provide – what are the key activities?
  • What value do you add to projects in the business? Or are you just gatekeepers and form checkers?
  • How does the business engage you?
  • Do you provide Project/Program Managers to the business? Or do you provide coaching of the business Project/Program Managers?
  • Are you a center of Project Management Excellence? Or do the Project Managers know more?
  • Get out from behind your desks and get out into project land. The more successful PMOs keep a very high profile in the business.
  • How do you help with scope formulation, estimating, budgets, risks, issues, scheduling, KPI reporting, benefits realisation, config and document management? Innovation and workshop facilitation? Requirements management and change management?
  • How clear are the processes for project managers?
  • How is your success measured? Who measures it and how often?
  • How effective is your PMO Manager/Executive? Do you have representation on the board or executive steering committee?
  • Do you have a complete view of current projects and programs being run? Those being planned? Or are there skunkworks in existence which may impact staff availability?
  • How can you assist in helping projects along the value chain and through the life cycle?
  • Could you describe in 2 sentences what you (personally) do and how you contribute to the business?

Zenkara focuses on streamlining and deploying business processes and quality systems and accelerating decision making through OODA (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act) and metrics systems. Zenkara is located in Brisbane, Australia.

PMHut Team

PMHut Team

PMHut.com is a website dedicated to providing PM articles, detailed project management software reviews, and the latest news for the most popular web-based collaboration tools.

1 Response

  1. Avatar Fallon says:

    Excellent list of questions for a quick value check. Our PMO team struggles with many of these questions everyday, but a few of them we hadn’t yet considered (such as keeping a high profile in the business). Thanks for the prompting. Will definitely be taking this into work on Monday.

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