PMO Project Management Office
Statistics can be cruel: according to several studies, most Project Management Offices (PMOs) are shut down just after 3 to 4 years after their implementation. While many reasons can lead to this scenario, a poor PMO start-up is typically one of the main root causes.
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| PMO Starter Kit Step by Step Timeline |
Just like projects, the front-end activities of a PMO implementation are critical to its success, laying the foundation for what to expect from the PMO going forward. In fact, most of the challenges that can later determine the life expectancy of a PMO arise from the very beginning of its establishment, such as:
- Poor sponsorship
- Unclear need for a PMO
- Unclear objectives
- Lack of direction for the PMO
- Poor visibility over the PMO performance
- Unclear roles and responsibilities
- Lack of awareness of what the PMO is and does
- Poor recognition of the PMO’s value
No wonder that the first stages of the PMO setup are so important!
Creating a PMO from scratch can be a hard-working task, I know, and it should be emphasised that no PMO is created equal, they are all different. However, while there is no magical pill or recipe that you can follow to guarantee the PMO success, there are acknowledged steps or best practices that can guide you, like the importance of having a PMO’s catalogue of services or identifying the key performance indicators that are going to be used to measure and demonstrate the PMO’s value.
Based on this set of recognized best practices, we have developed a PMO Starter Kit to help you setting up your PMO in the right direction and equipping you with a fighting chance. That’s right, we have done all the paperwork for you, ready to be used in your new PMO!
PMO Life cycle and PMO Starter Kit
The PMO Starter Kit aims to assist you in answering the following key questions and in building a solid foundation for your greenfield PMO:
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| PMO Life Cycle |
Addressing the PMO implementation as a project on its own and covering the PMO life cycle, the PMO Implementation Starter Kit includes templates for:
- PMO Implementation Timeline: a great visual tool to communicate with your stakeholders and understand how far you are in your PMO implementation project
- PMO Business Case: all you need to justify the need for a PMO before the business, with a view on anticipated costs and benefits resulting from the PMO implementation
- PMO Charter: PMO charter is a key document that clarifies the PMO objectives and scope and formalizes the existence of the PMO in the organization
- PMO Service Catalogue: document the menu of services that the PMO will be able to offer to the project management community
- PMO Stakeholder Plan: remember that your PMO was created to serve someone – identify who these individuals are and how you are going to manage their expectations
- PMO Roles: as important as the PMO’s functions are the competencies of the PMO’s team
- PMO Roadmap: to be successful, your PMO needs to understand where it is and where it wants to be, that is, its roadmap
- PMO Action Plan: this useful checklist will ensure that nothing will fall through the bricks and that all key aspects are being covered in the PMO’s implementation
- PMO KPI Dashboard: measuring the performance of the PMO is as important as measuring the performance of the portfolio of projects and this tool will assist you to do just that
- PMO Communication Plan: most PMOs fail not because they are not delivering value but because they are not communicating it well enough, so we have prepared a plan to address this frequent problem too
- PMO Kick-off Meeting: congratulations, initiation and planning activities are completed, and you are ready to kick-off the PMO. Let’s do this!
By using our set of pre-defined templates – which should be tailored as required, by the way - you can save time and focus on what really matters when setting up a PMO: managing relationships and start building the necessary PMO buy-in from the different stakeholder groups!
Don’t get me wrong: having appropriate templates is useful but it is just the beginning and a small part of what is involved in the establishment of a PMO. There’s much to be done, from coaching project teams to recruit the PMO team to create scheduling guidelines, so be brave and do not address the PMO implementation’s project lightly. It may sound daunting in the beginning, but you will later be happy that you didn’t fast-track these steps – after all, would you live in a house whose foundation was built in a hurry?
You have the tools and you have the mindset – now go and build the best PMO ever built!
Good luck and keep us posted of your journey, we would love to hear from you.
