Does your Head of PMO have a seat at the executive table?
It’s our firm belief that the Head of PMO should be equals with other C-Level stakeholders in matrix type enterprise organisations. If you want your PMO & business strategies to succeed, the Head of PMO needs to be considered equal to other C-Level counterparts in order have sufficient authority across the org & to get sufficient air-time with decision makers.
The average PMO can vary wildly in its level of maturity, but at its core it should provide guidance and support to all leaders across the organisation, and obviously all who work in a project capacity from project managers, project leaders, scrum masters and more. It is typically responsible for all types of projects across an organisation – both internal & external, IT projects and non-IT projects. Its reach is wide and deep and done well, a PMO can bring an extensive amount of value to an organisation due to it ability to positively influence the people, projects and project outcomes.
What are the keys to having this structure succeed?
- The PMO must provide operational visibility to senior leadership i.e. what’s happening on the ground
- The PMO must provide project prioritisation for the business
- The PMO must align projects to the overarching business strategy
- The PMO must be more than just ‘process creators’ and ‘process managers’
Fun Facts; Nine Deadly Sins of the PMO;
- PMO not connected to company strategy
- PMO becomes a process tyrant
- PMO has no core methodology or framework
- PMO attempts to solve ‘world hunger’
- PMO lacks transparency & visibility
- PMO is gathering & reporting unnecessary information (i.e. metrics happy!)
- PMO acts as a pure cost centre (doesn’t add value)
- PMO lacks an executive champion or a seat at the exec table
- PMO lacks infrastructure for communication management
Rank your PMO. Here’s a rundown of the varing degress of maturity of PMOs;
Level 5; Best In Class – Fully Strategic with Continuous Improvement processes & practices used enterprise wide
Level 4; Strategic – Standard portfolio management processes & practices which are used enterprise wide
Level 3; Institutionalised – Standard PM processes & practices which are used enterprise wide
Level 2; Established – Standard PM processes & practices which are mostly used
Level 1; Basic – Basic PM processes & practices which are used inconsistently across the organisation
If you don’t have a PMO, that fine too – because, that’s exactly what Next Projects was created to do – to fill the void in the portfolio, program and program management space in your organisation. Speak to one of the team to learn more.