What is a Project Management Office?
As you may be able to imagine, this is the office that is responsible for keeping the business functioning as it should; organising the different tasks and projects that need to be taken care of. In most cases, this will involve setting, maintaining and deciding how to execute projects.
Whether an internal or external team, your PMO is generally going to be important to ensuring that your company is running smoothly. Because of this, simple things like finding a good manager can be extremely worthwhile. There are numerous ways to get a good fit for your company and plenty of options for hiring out there, so let’s get to grips with what the right PMO can do for you.
Four benefits of PMO
Interested in seeing what a good PMO team could do for a business? Here are just a few examples of what you could expect:
- A good project management office can help you to pinpoint the goals of the company and how to work towards them in your everyday tasks
- PMO can help to monitor and fine-tune the ideal practices for the different projects at hand
- As a whole, it’s generally important to the operation of your company and could make a significant difference to the efficiency and productivity of the workforce when done right
- Most businesses will find that it can reduce the costs spent on a project, as well as the amount of time and effort put into things
One of the biggest benefits relates to transparency, and how this translates to alignment between your business and the work you choose to take on. The ethos of PMO is to keep an open line of communication with the stakeholders and to align potential projects with your business’s goals. Then there should be an understanding of how these can support your objectives when it comes to corporate targets – and selecting the most relevant ones. This will allow you to strategically align every task for maximum impact, creating a more streamlined approach to work, better budgeting and more.
What are PMO roles and responsibilities
These teams are here to help organise work and find the best practices for your team, which also includes helping to keep everyone active, positive and focused on the task at hand. Things like team building exercises and training for example, can sometimes come under the responsibilities of PMO.
Even with a quick look into the key functions of project management office and its benefits, you may already have an idea of why it can often be so important for managers to work on it.
A more in-depth look shows us how the PMO works in the office, as opposed to for the shareholders. Their main purpose is to both create and implement a host of methods that will streamline the way the office currently functions, with simple to understand processes and tools that can be used time and time again for efficiency. The good news is that these will be put into effect across the office, with everyone working from the same set of procedures. You’re likely to see an increase in the templates used for better productivity and these are often:
- Project proposal templates
- Project status report templates
- Project change request templates
- Project closure report templates
The bottom line for PMO is a supported framework that ensures successful projects that will be completed via open communication, useful tools and great project management processes. With this in mind, you may find project portfolio management tools (PPM) will feature much more frequently in the daily workings of your office and projects moving forward.
With the right PMO for your company, you can expect to enjoy:
- Better problem solving across the office
- The most productive methods for your workforce
- Better collaboration and communication business-wide
- Accurate and reliable information from beginning to end
- An innovative approach to management that goes outside of industry norms for the highest level of functionality
Three types of Project Management Offices
It’s also worth considering that there are different ways that a project management office can function. Evaluating the management in your company is often going to be a necessity. Because of this, it will often be a good idea to learn about some of the types of PMO and how they could benefit your business. Here’s a closer look into some of them:
- Controlling PMO - Management strategies that revolve around creating and sticking to guidelines, as well as reviewing projects. It tends to be a little stricter, but ideal for keeping teams focused on the task at hand
- Directive PMO - Teams that take control over a variety of management tasks, and therefore tend to be the biggest group
- Supportive PMO - Project management with a focus on providing support and training to employees
There are a number of useful apps available that you can use to help you out, if you’re looking to keep your management team on track. When you have some good tools at your disposal, it can often be even easier to ensure that you keep on top of all your business needs.
In short, PMO can be a valuable asset to bring into the daily workings of your company or business; whether you run it yourself or are a manager for someone else. It can be essential to meeting the wants and needs of an enterprise, with a strategic impact that other methods of project management simply can’t match. Your manager will be able to guide your employees into a new way of working that will be cost-effective for you and that can help to bridge any skill gaps you may be facing right now. With everyone utilising the same tools, methodologies and more, the benefits are likely to become apparent in no time at all.
The right person can elevate your processes, productivity, workforce, and even how you train employees, so why not give a project management office some serious thought today?
