PMOStep - Project Management Office Framework

Organizations around the world are implementing formal project management processes and disciplines to deliver their work initiatives on time, within budget and to an agreed upon level of quality.

Part of the ability to execute better, faster and cheaper comes from your ability to implement common processes and practices across your entire organization. Many organizations have attempted to deploy common processes by creating a focused Project Management Office (PMO) and giving this organization varying aspects of responsibility for projects and project management methodology.

There are many potential products and services that a PMO can be responsible for depending on the needs of the organization and the vision of the PMO sponsor. The group is typically responsible for acquiring and deploying a common project management process to the rest of the organization.

However, PMOs can also do much more, including training and coaching, project audits, consolidated project status reporting, project management certification, and portfolio management.

Predefined PMO Model

We will use our predefined PMO model to help you determine:

  • The best PMO model for your organization
  • The products and services that should be offered
  • A Current and Future State Assessment of your PMO needs
  • A Deployment Strategy for getting you to your future state
  • A detailed Deployment Plan to implement your PMO
  • Deployment execution, resulting in a fully deployed PMO for your organization

The Value of a PMO

There should be no question that your organization will find value in good, sound project management practices. In fact, the larger the project is, the more project management becomes a requirement for success, not just a value-adding proposition.

In general, the value of a common project management process includes:

  • Reduced cycle time
  • Reduced delivery costs
  • Improved quality of project deliverables
  • Early identification and proactive management of project issues and risks
  • Better containment and management of project scope
  • More opportunities to leverage and reuse knowledge
  • Improved accuracy of estimates
  • Better communication with clients and stakeholders
  • Improved perceptions of your organization by your clients
  • Improved people and resource management
  • Reduced time to get up to speed on new projects

Responsibilities of a PMO

At a high level, a PMO is increasingly being viewed as an essential component that enables the success of projects, and hence, the future success of the entire organization. At a more tactical level, the value provided by a PMO is summarized below. Although PMOs can be established to provide a narrow or broad set of services, this list includes many of the common responsibilities a full PMO would perform:

  • The PMO establishes and deploys a common set of project management processes and templates, which saves each project manager or organization from having to create these on their own. These reusable project management components help projects start-up more quickly and with much less effort.
  • The PMO builds the methodology and updates it as needed to account for improvements and best practices. Therefore, as new or revised processes and templates are made available, the PMO deploys them consistently to the organization.
  • The PMO facilitates improved project team communication by having common processes, deliverables, and terminology. There is less misunderstanding and confusion within the organization if everyone uses the same language and terminology for project related work.
  • The PMO sets up and supports a common repository so that prior project management deliverables can be candidates for reuse by similar projects, further reducing project start-up time.
  • The PMO provides training (internal or through vendors) to build core project management competencies and a common set of experiences. If the training is delivered by the PMO, there is a further reduction in overall training costs paid to outside vendors.
  • The PMO delivers project management coaching services to keep projects from getting into trouble. Projects at risk can also be coached to ensure that they do not get any worse.
  • The PMO tracks basic information on the current status of all projects in the organization and provides project visibility to management in a common and consistent manner.
  • The PMO tracks organization-wide metrics on the state of project management, project delivery and the value being provided to the business by project management in general, and the PMO specifically.
  • The PMO acts as the overall advocate for project management to the organization. This includes educating and selling management and team members on the value gained through the use of consistent project management processes.

Note: PMOStep is a TenStep internal methodology. We do not license it to companies or individuals unless we are working with a company on a package of products and services.