Project Management Office:

PMO is a tailored department in organization to centralize and implement, standard procedures

of Project management, policies, documentation and knowledge sharing.

Objectives:
PMO is an organizational innovation to undertake and complete right projects successfully by:

Supporting management of project by providing standard methodologies, procedures,

policies, documentation templates, reporting structure, knowledge management and
necessary tools for project managers.
Aligning programs and projects work to organizations strategic goals.
Establishment of governance framework and Infrastructure
PMO Framework:
A framework is a skeleton of an entity. Basic elements which make up the PMO, formulated in
different proportions according to the need in organization are as follows.

Defining Process and Methodologies, develop processes and define metrics

Managing Performance and Governance by escalating issues, distributing information,
managing finances and defining Key Performance Index
Management of Organizational Changes by managing stakeholders and their
satisfaction. By managing resistance inside the organization and developing
Communication.
Management of Resources by offering trainings, skill development, career path and
qualifications.

PMO Types:
PMO is established in different organizations to cater different needs. Hence, PMO can be
categorized into different types on different basis. PMO can be classified based on its operational
scope, authority and influence.

Categorization based on its authority and influence yields three basic types of PMO.

Supportive:
PMO, as the name suggests, provides support to the project managers by providing them with
templates, guidelines on best practices and tools required for successful execution of the
projects. This type of PMO collects information from different projects (in large organizations),
such as status and budget reports. This information is available to be shared with other
projects/departments and also presented to top management. Control of such PMO on projects
is very low.

Controlling:
PMO not only provides support in form of standard procedures, templates and formats but also
ensures compliance to these methodologies, templates and procedures. It requires from the
project managers that they use the support extended by PMO. This kind of PMO has moderate
authority and influence over the Projects.

Directive
PMO takes charge of the project and manages the project directly. Project Managers with vast
experience from PMO are assigned to the projects who bring along professionalism and ensure
that high consistency level of procedures and processes is achieved.
Goals of PMO:
Define methodologies and metrics for the project management and develop processes.
Provide human resources with tools and consultancy to help them excel.
Define and implement management of knowledge and lessons learned inside the
organization.
Identification and definition of strategic priorities and aligning the projects with strategic
goals of the organization

Challenges of PMO:
There are many factors negatively impacting a PMO but some of the major challenges PMOs
have to take are as follows:

Unclear Goals set for PMO makes it harder for Project managers and Stakeholders to
accept this new department
Organizational Culture is one of the biggest hurdles faced by PMO. People reject the
change and tend to stick to the practices they have already been following for years.
Inexperienced Leadership of Project Management Office is unable to tackle the
resistance and challenges to PMO.
Inactive Sponsors and uncommitted stakeholders do not buy the concept of PMO and
thus do not support it fully.
Poor Implementation of PMO makes it difficult to map ongoing projects processes
and methodologies with the ones devised by PMO

Elements of Effective PMO

Leadership:
Highly Experienced in Implementation of PMO
Good at Managing Customers and Stakeholders
Able to take Pressure and manage Conflicts.

Executive Support:
Buy-in of Chief Executive and Senior Management
Acceptance and Commitment from Senior Management
Authority delegated to PMO to take action.
Scope and Policies:
Well defined Scope of PMO
PMO vision, mission, responsibilities and authorities are clearly defined and
communicated across the organization
Policies, Repeatable templates, procedures and good practices are documented.