Counseling and Mentoring
A PMO may provide either formal or informal counseling and mentoring to project resources. This role can be especially useful to support new project management staff, such as when an organization is establishing project management or new staff are recruited.
RESPONSIBILITIES FOR SETTING PROJECT
MANAGEMENT STANDARDS
Establishing project management standards is a common role for PMOs. This set of responsibilities provides the opportunity for a PMO to influence how an organization undertakes projects. These responsibilities help to set the organizational infrastructure for projects. This can provide both a direct and an indirect influence on projects.
Setting Project Management Methodologies
This role can include either, or both, defining project execution standards and defining project life cycle standards. The former relates to setting parameters for items such as documentation, reporting, sign-offs, issue management, etc. The latter relates to defining, usually at a high level, the sequence of activities a project will go
through (e.g., requirements gathering, design, prototyping, sign-off, building, testing, and roll-out).
Defining the methodologies to be used by projects is a powerful force in influencing how an organization undertakes its projects. It is thus often a key responsibility given to a PMO when an organization expects a PMO to have a major impact on improving its project execution.
Providing Templates
This responsibility links closely to setting methodologies. By providing templates for project activities such as chartering, status reporting, risk assessment, budgeting, issue management, and post-implementation reviews, a PMO can have a very direct impact on how projects are managed. Templates can provide very explicit direction on what processes are to be followed. This enables an organization that is new to project management to quickly put standard processes in place.
Providing Project Management Tools
Providing tools has both a direct and an indirect impact on how projects are managed. Tools can range from templates (discussed above), to “off-the-shelf”
project management software, to customized project management tools.
Providing Repositories
Another potential responsibility for a PMO is to set up and maintain project repositories. These can include shared computer directories for storing project documentation such as status reports and budgets; directories for maintaining all project documentation; and a central source of “best practice” project process and deliverables. A recent trend in this area is to establish Web or intranet sites.
PROJECT EXECUTION RESPONSIBILITIES
Responsibilities for project execution or delivery are closely tied to ownership of resources. A PMO that “owns resources,” typically project managers or a project resource group, generally takes on much of the responsibility for delivering projects.
A PMO that has responsibility for project execution will require expertise in the range of project management knowledge areas and project management processes. Many PMOs do not have this direct responsibility. Their responsibilities are more indirect, focused on supporting and building project management capability by influence.
However, even in these cases, PMOs typically will have responsibility for some key processes.
Risk and Issue Management
A PMO can be given a comprehensive risk management role. This may vary from setting the standard for risk management processes to actually facilitating or conducting project risk management. Reasons to make this a PMO, rather than project, responsibility can include introducing independence, introducing greater cross-project input, and building specialty expertise.
Issue management, like risk management, responsibility can be moved to a PMO
from a project. Reasons for this are similar to those for moving risk management.
Impact and Change Management
Responsibility for assessing impacts of projects on their stakeholders — customers, employees, and shareholders — can be given to a PMO. A PMO as a focus for project activity can be in a good position to be able to understand the impacts of projects, both on each other and on stakeholders. For example, a PMO may be able to overview the impacts of quite separate initiatives on employees because of its vantage point. Individual projects may not have the same ability to assess these impacts. Similarly, analyzing and understanding the organizational changes that projects cause can be a responsibility particularly suited to a PMO. The potential for a PMO to have a useful role in managing impacts and changes increases as an organization’
s size and project portfolio grow.
Communication
The exposure of a PMO to multiple projects places it in a good position to both manage communication among projects, and between projects and other parts of the organization. This role may extend to providing executive updates on projects to an executive group. Communication can be mediated either by direct communication such as by providing newsletters and presentations, or indirectly by providing access to project repositories such as shared directories or intranet sites. These roles become more important for larger organizations or organizations with many projects.
In these cases, a PMO has the potential to provide a summarized and focused overview of projects.
Project Auditing
A major potential role for PMOs is auditing the application of project management standards. This may be done to all projects or may focus on particular “high importance” projects. This may be done by formal assessment or it may be an ongoing oversight role of a PMO. Some organizations use their regular internal audit processes, but others choose to use their PMOs due to the project management expertise that these groups may have.
Focus on Major or Special Projects
A variant on the role of a PMO in project execution is giving a PMO execution responsibility for a selected group of projects. This could include major projects, projects requiring special attention such as politically sensitive projects, or groups of related projects.
RESPONSIBILITIES FOR BUSINESS STRATEGY
In organizations such as those in the communication and financial sectors, which have an ongoing major investment in technology, and others where project-related expenditures consume a major part of the discretionary budget, PMOs are ideally situated to take on an expanded strategic role. As shown in Exhibit 1, PMOs, by their
involvement in many aspects of projects, are in a unique position to take on a central role in the project life cycle.
Exhibit 1. Potential Central Role of a PMO in the Project Initiation and Execution Life Cycle
This central role, plus exposure to the life cycle of multiple projects from initiation and planning to execution and closing, places PMOs in a unique position to take a major strategic role in organizations. The strategic responsibilities of a PMO can potentially include the following.
Collection of Initiatives
A PMO can act as a central point for the gathering of initiative proposals. This role can include the provision of templates and guidelines to assist those submitting proposals.
Project Evaluation
PMOs can be a central point for project planning. This would include the evaluation of proposals against various criteria. These criteria could include evaluation of factors such as costs, benefits, strategic fit, stakeholder impacts, risk assessments, resource impacts and availability, and relationships with existing projects and schedules.
Project Prioritization
The PMO role can also include the prioritization of the proposals received. This may be from a cost/benefit or other financial perspective, but may also include prioritization by assessing project resource availability, project impact evaluations, and risk assessments.
Project Planning and Scheduling
PMOs can play a key role in planning individual projects by providing appropriate tools and templates. However, because of their exposure to multiple projects, PMOs are in an ideal position to coordinate projects and entire programs. Projects may be planned and scheduled by coordinating tasks and dependencies, but may also include resource and impact considerations.
Project Approval and Funding
An extension of the prioritization and scheduling role is the formal approval and funding role. A PMO cannot replace other organizational groups in planning or managing an organization’
s discretionary budgets and activities. However, they are
ideally positioned to coordinate and facilitate these processes.
Project Monitoring and Controlling
Once projects have commenced, a PMO can take on the role of monitoring project progress. This is already a common role of PMOs. By implementing and reviewing regular status reporting, a PMO is able to monitor elements such as cost, resource utilization, timing, and progress against plan. This information provides a basis for exercising control over projects. Remedial action can be taken on projects that are failing to meet cost and other plan targets.
Project Portfolio Management
An extension of the monitoring and controlling role is the management of the portfolio of projects. A delay, or speedy progress, in one project may provide opportunities for other projects. Similarly, monitoring a portfolio of projects enables rapid response to changing organizational priorities; resources can be moved from one initiative to another, or scope or time priorities can be adjusted.
AN EXAMPLE OF APPLYING DESIGN PRINCIPLES
Exhibit 2 provides a number of common design alternatives for the factors discussed above. The checklist enables a rapid evaluation of factors that should be considered in designing a project management office. The checklist can be used for the initial setup of a PMO or an evaluation of design alternatives as a PMO evolves.
Exhibit 2. Design Alternatives for a Project Management Office Design Factors
Alternatives
Organizational Factors