Project / Program Management Office
These days many organisations have one or perhaps several project or program management offices (PMO). A good PMO can be very useful, but it is important to be clear about the PMO’s purpose and who it belongs to if it is to be effective. Basically there are two types:
Dedicated PMO
This PMO is dedicated to a specific large program or project, reports only to the program or project manager, and helps to manage the project. SMS has many years of experience in establishing and operating dedicated PMOs. We have collected a large suite of project/program management tools and can use them to quickly create an operational PMO.
SMS commonly helps organisations to manage a large project or program by providing a dedicated PMO which delivers planning, scheduling, project financial, risk management, issues management, change control, design management, communication management and other necessary support services to the project.
Enterprise PMO
This PMO belongs to senior management rather than to any particular project. It adds value by achieving a degree of consistency in how projects in the organisation are managed and reported, helping to raise project management maturity across the enterprise.
We have established, operated and improved many Enterprise PMOs for our clients, who have found this a good way to leverage SMS’ expertise. Organisations sometimes allow an Enterprise PMO to become focused on compliance with standards with the result that the projects it was intending to help reject its assistance. We know how to build an Enterprise PMO which is highly valued by project managers and have helped many organisations to do it.
A good Enterprise PMO will often be asked to help top management to select the projects which will best achieve the organisation’s business objectives. An Enterprise PMO can evolve to become a Portfolio Management Office which helps top management to create a portfolio of business initiatives which, within the organisation’s capabilities, delivers the business strategy. This is a more innovative area for most organisations, and SMS is ready to help using our wide portfolio management experience and knowhow.