PM Solutions is a project management firm helping organizations execute, govern, and measure their portfolios to improve business performance.
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The Strategic Project Office: Second Edition
An Inside Look at High-Performing PMOs
Optimizing Human Capital with a Strategic Project Office
Establishing a Successful PMO
Deploy – Operate – Enhance
Organizations continue to be challenged with resource planning and forecasting, the consistent application of defined project management processes, and demand management. A well-managed Project Management Office (PMO) can address these challenges and focus on much more than just delivering projects.
For more than 15 years, PM Solutions has been well-known as a leader in PMO design and practice, bringing its clients the expertise and tools needed to help create and sustain a value-driven PMO. We regularly work with clients to deploy a new PMO, operate a PMO, or optimize and enhance an existing PMO to meet a set of evolving challenges, functions, and services. Our processes are scalable and fit PMOs at any level of the organization (enterprise, divisional, departmental, etc.) at any level of PMO maturity. PM Solutions’ highly experienced consultants (15 years on average) have deployed and actively managed PMOs for both commercial and government organizations. We’ve worked in most industries, including manufacturing, IT, financial services, and healthcare.
PMO structure and process are only part of the overall picture. It takes people to adapt to the cultural shifts that result and embrace PMO operations. Because we have our own training division, the PM College, we incorporate training, professional development, mentoring, and coaching, which are integral parts of making a PMO “stick” and become a valued organizational entity to the business.
The first step PM Solutions takes in deploying a PMO is to assess the current environment and develop a deployment roadmap that takes into account your organization’s culture and operating practices. We work with you to identify, prioritize, and establish a set of fundamental PMO functions and services. Deployment includes developing the PMO Charter and communications plan, identifying resource needs and performance measures, incorporating the right amount of repeatable delivery processes to fit your culture, improving the competencies of your staff through training and mentoring, and establishing governance standards. Emphasis is on the PMO providing an organizational focus on improving the management of projects, programs, and portfolios.
We also provide a variety of specialty PMO resources (in areas such as project controls, project/program management, portfolio management, resource management, and business analysis) to help staff your PMO for as long as you require, and we will ensure a smooth transition of work responsibilities to your in-house team.
If project management is not a core competency, consider outsourcing the PMO. PM Solutions works in partnership with you to understand your goals and establish a structure that works to achieve these goals. We come equipped with a customizable toolkit of proven techniques and methodologies to plan, execute, monitor, measure, analyze, and report on your programs and projects within the PMO’s oversight. Constant communication between the PMO team and stakeholders is crucial to success and a core tenet of our PMO operating model. Performance measures are collectively established upfront with you, and progress toward established goals is continually provided via quality reviews, status meetings, and daily interactions.
Our PMO team can work onsite at your location, remotely at one of our secure facilities, or a combination of the two depending on your needs. You can rest assured that your PMO operations will achieve their stated objectives and run seamlessly.
Once fundamental PMO functions are established and running smoothly, PMOs are positioned to expand their charter and provide a more strategic leadership level of functionality and service offerings. PMO boundaries broaden beyond projects to cover complex portfolios that include non-project work needed to operate the business. The enhanced PMO balances and manages the demand on resources. In many organizations, the PMO takes on the role of advocate of business unit needs. PMOs offering this level of service govern with a senior management focus on strategic issues and facilitate and manage change across the organization.
To take your PMO to the next level, PM Solutions will first review and evaluate your existing PMO structure and current functions to recommend targeted enhancements that will show results quickly. Based on these findings, we provide a transformation roadmap to expand the level of PMO services and organizational influence. Areas of focus for the transformation include overall visibility and influence of the PMO, level of PM competency, portfolio resource optimization, demand management of both project and operations work, and facilitating organizational change.
PM Solutions partners with you to make these transformations a reality within your organization. We baseline and measure performance along the way to make sure you have a PMO framework that’s agile enough to respond to evolving business demands, yet disciplined enough to operate efficiently.
To find out how PM Solutions can help you deploy, operate, or enhance your PMO, contact us today.
