Introduction

Establishing a project management office (PMO) is a challenging endeavour. Many organizations that have tried to establish a PMO have either not been as successful as they could have been, or they have failed entirely. It is not uncommon for an organization to eventually phase out their PMO because it did not live up to its original promise. Although there is no way to guarantee that you will be successful in implementing a PMO into your organization, careful planning and following a few basic guidelines can help avoid many common pitfalls.

This article provides you with some of the common yet hard won wisdom and lessons learned that have been gained from professionals deploying PMOs.

Garner organizational support

Before deploying a PMO, ensure that you have support from all levels of your organization – from the executive director to the frontline worker who has seemingly little to do with the PMO. This piece of advice is often repeated, but it is very rarely heeded. The project management office will have widespread impact on your whole organization. It will certainly affect those who work on projects because they could potentially have new lines of accountability as well as increased support structures. It will affect those responsible for running projects because they will have a new methodology to follow in their day-to-day activities. Deploying the PMO could transform your entire organization. Failing to get support, especially from those whom it will affect, could seriously jeopardize its effectiveness.

Getting support can involve everything from informal discussions in the lunchroom to a formal presentation before the board. All of these discussions must involve the same key messages though: how the PMO will benefit the organization and how the PMO will benefit that particular individual. People are interested in knowing how the PMO will improve their daily work experience. It is your job to figure out how and tell them.

Examine integration with other organizational areas

Another key issue during implementation is ensuring that you are aware of and plan for the impact that the PMO will have on other organizational areas. Some areas come to mind quickly. Deploying a PMO will certainly impact daily project delivery. Deploying a PMO whose responsibility it is to monitor, train, or execute projects will necessarily affect the way projects are delivered.

What about other areas of the organization though? What other areas will be affected by establishing a PMO? Other areas that the PMO will affect are less obvious. Accounting is a good example of this. There will be some interface between the project budget and the overall organizational budget. Therefore, there will be an impact on the organizational accounting processes. A PMO may also impact organizational resourcing if it has the authority to contract people on a project by project basis.

The PMO does not exist in a vacuum. It is closely integrated with all other areas of the organization. You will need to identify what areas will be affected and how it might change the processes and actions of these areas when you establish a project management office.

Use a phased approach

Most major projects are complex and involve many people and activities. Establishing a project management office is no different. There can be many people involved in it and many people affected by it. Transforming the organization can be an arduous and difficult process, and should not be done all at once.

A phased approach to establishing a PMO works best. First, identify those processes that are easiest to change. For example, an easier step might be to first create a common methodology that each project manager uses to deliver projects. Once they become used to a standard approach to project delivery, you can establish processes that facilitate good communications among each of the projects.

The final phase would be to integrate the project-related activities with that of the entire organization. This phased approach to establishing a PMO allows the organization to transform slowly and is more likely to be successful.

Size it accordingly

A common issue with deploying a methodology is that it is not appropriately sized for the organization. Many organizations implement methodologies that are too administratively heavy for the existing infrastructure or simply too complex for the needs that they are trying to meet. We have all experienced a situation wherein we feel that we are doing paperwork for paperwork’s sake. This is often the result of a methodology that is not appropriate for the organization.

PMOs are not one-size-fits-all. You need to identify what will work best for your organization. The methodology that you employ does not need to be complex or administratively heavy. It simply needs to fulfill your need for a PMO. If you deploy the PMO and it doesn’t seem to be working out very well, don’t be afraid to make some changes in the PMO’s scale or processes.

Provide adequate training

Training is an important aspect of implementing a PMO. People will be used to doing things in the same way that they have always done them, but a PMO will likely change those processes. You need to offer training to people so that they can understand how things will work in the future. The training should provide an overview of how the organization has changed and focus on how particular work processes have changed. Training will help obviate the confusion sometimes brought on by change and also work as a communications exercise to garner support from people.

Summary

Establishing a project management office can be a very challenging endeavour because it will transform the way your organization works. Although challenging, it is possible with planning and care! This article has identified some of the critical success factors in establishing a PMO in your organization. These are lessons that have been hard learned through both past success and failure. Consider these when developing your implementation plan because they can help smooth out those bumps greatly. Good luck!

Blair Witzel (blair@mcdoane.com) is a member of the Project Management Institute and a consultant with McDonnell Doane + Associates, an information management and technology firm focusing on the not-for-profit and public sectors. His work centres on managing multi-project portfolios and working with organizations to develop project management methodologies to more effectively deliver projects.