Project Management Office (PMO): Establishing and Optimising Project Governance

Posted on Sep 20, 2023 at 11:09 PM

The project management office (PMO) is considered a new organisational department. However, the project management office (PMO) greatly benefits and positively impacts all projects and management standards worldwide.

If you want to support your enterprise structure with a project management office (PMO), continue reading our article to gain complete information about office PMO and its attached management standards.

The Project Management Office (PMO) Definition:

A project management office (PMO), a project portfolio management office, is a business department that maintains, defines, and structures project management structure and progress across an organisation.

The crucial role of project management phases in project success strengthened the PMO's existence in local and international companies.

The office PMO is typically responsible for internal and external activities and functions to support the established PMO teams and managers and create fixed and robust office standards.

The 3 Key Types of Project Management Office (PMO):

As with all project management methodologies, PMO also has different sets, types, and standards that all are created to guide the ongoing services, however, with other strategic levels of control:

Supportive PMO:

As with a project management diploma in UK, this PMO type provides training, guidance, and information to the working team.

So, this project management office type implements a consultive and dedicated role to the project's manager while keeping the manager responsible for the final decision.

Controlling PMO:

In this type, the office department defines clear guidelines for the project managers, and they must benefit from these structures and follow them to achieve the required results.

This methodology will guarantee that all projects work based on the same guidelines and roles and meet the same quality while improving each manager's skills for project management.

Directive PMO:

With the highest level of control, these PMOs will directly manage the organisational details, including assignments facilitating, resources management, agency oversight, and all the daily information related to that program.

This type requires highly trained and professional project managers who can deliver the PMO's efforts in the best way.

The Primary Responsibilities of the Project Management Office (PMO):

The central role of the project management office (PMO) is to maintain quality in all the organisation's ongoing and future projects.

However, there are for sure multiple responsibilities that are included:

Defining the work done by the company's employees and tracking to guarantee that everyone follows the same quality standards and frameworks.
The PMO defines and governs responsibility for all the tasks and details, which lowers error possibilities and ensures that all projects follow their timeline and function effectively.
Set tools for all the employees, depending on their needs and the shared organisation's resources.
Build a general development structure for each department and the company to ensure the best practices, guidelines, and communication programs.
Create a transparent reporting process to organise the company's work and the relationship between employees and between the company and vendors.
Archive documents and provide a documentation process to guarantee the safety of the corporate records and easy access to them at any time.
Set S.M.A.R.T. goals and expectations for each department on all the business processes and projects.

Benefits of Project Management Office (PMO):

As we mentioned earlier, the project management office department maintains and manages significant responsibilities; therefore, when operating them correctly, significant impacts will empower the institute's work:

PMOs define and maintain each project aligned with the organisation's mission, vision, and objectives.
The project management officer organises and facilitates collaboration and implementation of rules among the company's offices.
Encourage employees to grow, whether their engineering project management skills or any other required skills in your field.
PMOs improve the efficiency of ongoing operations and initiatives and boost resource usage on all organisational levels.
Develop the corporation's project management strategy from planning, developing to executing and finishing.

Finally,

Although the project management office (PMO) department is considered new to the management world, day after day, it is proving its ability to improve the work with quality standards.

Thus, you must empower and train your teams to run a solid and successful PMO department.