Five Steps to Creating the Strategic Enterprise Project Management Office
Organizations today recognize that fewer and fewer projects are self-contained within individual departments and instead cross multiple business functions. In the past, project management offices (PMOs) have been aligned with IT, in part because of the role that technology plays in all projects. However, with technology now shifting to become a contributor to those business transformation initiatives, it is ineffective to maintain the PMO as an IT function.
A single, enterprise-wide EPMO is the natural answer to this evolution. However, many organizations with EPMOs fail to see the improvement in project execution performance.
Does this sound familiar with what you’re dealing with? If so, we have the perfect white paper for you, “Five Steps to Creating the Strategic Enterprise Project Management Office.” This white paper provides real EPMO examples that we’ve heard and seen from today’s leading organizations. We purposely narrowed it down to a few select examples that we thought would be most helpful to you in ensuring a successful EPMO implementation.
Here’s a little tidbit from the white paper: One of the common mistakes that organizations make with PMOs in general, and that becomes more significant with an EPMO is to appoint a department head who is highly experienced in project leadership. In the same way as the best accountant doesn’t always make the best CFO, or the best sales leader, the best project leader isn’t always the best person to lead an EPMO. I recently worked with an organization on the establishment of an EPMO, and we defined the job posting for the VP level role that would be running the function. The successful candidate had been heavily involved in planning and strategy as well as in managing an operational budget. She had worked on a number of different business transformation initiatives, but had never formally held a project manager or similar title. However, to quote the CEO, “the right person can learn project management; it’s much harder to learn good judgement and astute business management.”
In addition to that, you’ll learn five key steps to deliver sustainable EPMO success:
- Define the business purpose
- Establish appropriate leadership and accountability models
- Communicate purpose, accountabilities and alignment
- Respond to results and measurements
- Develop a roadmap for true evolution into a business function