PMO – Project Management Office

A Project Management Office (PMO) is a strategic function within an enterprise. A well-run PMO helps an organisation prioritise and manage its investments in its portfolios, programmes, and projects.

The term PMO refers interchangeably to a project management office, program management office, and portfolio management office.

Successful PMO

A successful PMO ensures that the right resources are spent at the right time, in the right areas to get help meet strategic goals and deliver the greatest benefits and value. A value-driven PMO focuses senior management’s attention on the big picture of the totality of change investments and initiatives.

Role of a PMO

A PMO can also provide support to different projects, programs, and portfolios by giving help with defining and maintaining standards, planning, reporting on project performance, tools, processes, and resource allocation. Economies of scale can be achieved which are simply impossible at an individual project level.

Benefits of a PMO

Companies which invest in a PMO strategy can benefit by ensuring the delivery and execution of projects only occurs if it can be proven that the investment will contribute to meeting stakeholders’ needs.

This in turn increases the benefits realised from the portfolio overall. Success from one project can also have a positive contribution on other projects. Project Management Offices can ensure that lessons are learned and disseminate these to other project teams.

Project portfolio management

Project portfolio management refers to the delivery of the organisation’s strategy. It achieves this by ensuring that proposed changes at the operational level are agreed by the right senior management stakeholders and contribute to at least one strategic objective.

Portfolio management ensures that multiple projects and resources are prioritized to ensure they contribute to strategic objectives. These initiatives are then frequently reviewed to ensure they remain strategically aligned.