For as long as there have been PMOs there have been people complaining about PMOs. Project managers feel they interfere, business leaders feel they are expensive and low value, and stakeholders feel they’re just, well, a nuisance. All of those complaints can be legitimate – but they don’t have to be.
Traditional PMOs have focused ‘down and in’ – looking at the mechanics of how projects are delivered and monitoring things like governance, compliance and status reporting. It’s 2020. We have software for all of that. If a PMO is going to deliver value to the business – and it has to if it’s going to survive, then it has to look ‘up and out’. That is, it focuses on the environment that projects deliver into and helps ensure:
- The right projects are being funded
- Project outputs are capable of achieving the business outcomes that are driving those investments
- Adjustments are being made to maintain that alignment in an always changing environment
PMO leaders today have to be business leaders. They must provide project managers with the business context for their projects. They must provide business leaders with the business impact of project challenges and issues. And they must be custodians of the project investments that the organization is making to drive performance.
Today’s business world is constantly being disrupted – yes COVID-19 is getting the headlines right now, but competitors, technological advances, regulators, client demands and a myriad of other factors will continue to disrupt how business gets done long after the current economic crisis has been overcome. To succeed, your business has to be able to not only ride out that disruption, it needs to be able to take advantage of it. To pivot on a dime with minimal disruption to take advantage of new opportunities and thwart emerging threats.
You can’t do that with a traditional PMO.
The ‘up and out’ focus is just one of the pillars of a modern, business focused PMO. You can learn more by joining industry expert Andy Jordan and ServiceNow’s own Doug Page for a webinar on the topic on August 5th – Register Here. As a leader you have a lot of change ahead of you – enterprise agility, digital transformation, the evolution from project to products in software delivery. All of those initiatives need to be driven by an effective PMO, and unless your PMO is business focused, well, it’s just not effective right now. That has to change, and it has to change quickly.
You can also learn more about the importance of the business focused PMO by listening to this ITBM Enterprise Agility podcast episode with Andy Jordan and Laura Barnard. And, download this eBook titled,
"Turbocharge your project management office."
We look forward to having you join us on the webinar, August 5th.
