#Establishing a project office how to

Motivating factors may vary for different organizations. Having a working knowledge of your organization will help in this step―knowing what excites or drives them to succeed. The second step in establishing PMO priorities is motivation. Consistency and efficiency will help streamline administrative activities, improve resource estimates, and increase the likelihood that projects will come in on time and on budget. With consistency comes efficiency, allowing your project teams to focus on the work at hand, and not recreate processes. Taking the opportunity for continuous process improvement―to review and share the PMO processes and templates with the organization on a reoccurring basis―helps to ensure consistency across programs within the organization. PMI notes “high-performing organizations succeed through a strategic focus on people, processes, and outcomes” and 74% of these high-performing organizations are supported by a PMO. Each organization can make the determination of what kind of information is necessary in this step to make prioritization more streamlined and specific to their current structure and processes.Īs new team members enter and exit project work, there is a risk that knowledge transfer of the PMO processes get lost, or deviations in processes begin to occur. This may include items such as type of project, expected outcomes, aligned strategic objective(s), targeted length of the project, targeted start date, funding sources, types of approvals needed, resource capacity, and risk versus reward analysis. For each project or initiative, you will want to pull together information that will assist you in the prioritization process. Identifying all projects for the upcoming year is an excellent place to start. The first step in establishing the priorities for your PMO requires planning and evaluating existing processes. This allows for more efficient processes, more focused and flexible project managers, greater scope, schedule, and budgetary control, and ultimately more successful projects implemented.

The “value” here must be determined by each organization, but through establishing your PMO priorities early, you promote a culture of project management in order to gain greater experience in project management practices and personnel. With multiple competing projects and initiatives, spending some time planning and developing your PMO priorities in the short term will save you time and effort moving forward.Īccording to the Project Management Institute’s (PMI’s) research, they reported that 'aligning projects and strategic objectives has the greatest potential to add value to an organization.” However, when establishing your PMO priorities, think:ĭetermining where your organization will focus your efforts is fundamental to the successful functioning of the PMO, whether the PMO is well established or just getting started. You may think that PMO stands for Project Management Office, Program Management Office, or Portfolio Management Office, and you would be correct. Finally, we will discuss some of the best practices to transform an ordinary one to a world class PMO.Read this if you or your government agency may be interested in project management or a project management office. Next, we will present a multi-step process of construction of a solid PMO. As a leader in the field, PMO Advisory presents four models of PMOs and a roadmap for organizations to grow and mature. Then we will examine the benefits and its challenges as many PMOs confront the unique problem of a short life span. This webinar attempts to address these questions.

#Establishing a project office how to

These concerns raise a serious question on how to best develop and nurture an effective PMO like w hat capabilities should the PMO have? What are the benefits? How would you build and maintain a good PMO? Hence, while most of the project professionals are familiar with the “PMO”, chances are, no two experiences are exactly alike. This is partly reflected in the uniqueness of each organization’s situation and partly because the challenges and opportunities are different. PMOs are rarely the same across different organizations, even though many of them share common capabilities and features. Project Management Office or PMO is becoming a popular choice to address this question of project intensity and the need for sustainable project execution. Description: As organizations change, tackling greater numbers of projects, while investing organizational resources, the pressure to become more efficient and effective increases.