introduction
this article is to discuss the border area of project management office
Project Management Office PMO
What is PMO ?
- A Project Management Office (PMO) is a group or department within a business, agency or enterprise that defines and maintains standards for project management within the organization.
- The primary goal of a PMO is to achieve benefits from standardizing and following project management policies, processes and methods.
- Over time, a PMO generally will become the source for guidance, documentation, and metrics related to the practices involved in managing and implementing projects within the organization.
- A PMO may also get involved in project-related tasks and follow up on project activities through completion.
- The office may report on project activities, problems and requirements to executive management as a strategic tool in keeping implementers and decision makers moving toward consistent, business- or mission-focused goals and objectives.
What does PMO Do Exactly ?
Governance.
- The PMO ensures that decisions are taken by the right people, based on the right information. The governance role can also include audits or peer reviews, developing project and program structures and ensuring accountability at all levels.
Transparency.
- The PMO is responsible for providing information and being the single source of the truth. Information should be relevant and accurate to support effective decision-making, and provided to people in a way they can understand.
Reusability.
- The PMO facilitates the sharing of knowledge. This stops project teams from reinventing the wheel and makes the PMO the central point for lessons learned, templates and best practice.
Delivery support
- The PMO makes it easy for project teams to do their jobs by reducing bureaucracy, providing training, coaching, mentoring and quality assurance.
Traceability.
- The PMO provides the function for managing documentation, project history and organizational knowledge.
Project manager & PMO
The project manager focuses on the specified project objectives, while the PMO Manages major program scope changes which may be seen as potential opportunities to better achieve business objectives.
The project manager controls the assigned project resources to best meet project objectives while the PMO optimizes the use of shared organizational resources across all projects.
The project manager manages the constraints (scope, schedule, cost, quality, etc.) of the individual projects while the PMO manages the methodologies, standards, overall risk/opportunity & interdependencies among projects at the enterprise level.
type of PMO
There are several types of PMO structure; supportive, controlling and directive.
supportive :
- consultant ,
- provide template ,
- and lesson learned ,
- control is low
controlling
- provide support
- and require compliance ,
- control degree is moderate
directive
- directly manage project
- and act like PM ,
- degree of control is HIGH
