How To Set Up A Successful Pmo
The more projects your organization is running, the more you lot need mechanisms that ensure projects don't fail.
That's because failures can become very costly for an organization.
Setting up a Project Management Office or PMO is a common way how organizations control and oversee their projects.
What a PMO really is
Put simply, a PMO is just another department like finance or 60 minutes. Its responsibility to set standards for how projects are managed and to monitor their progress.
Standards can include mandatory projection templates but also rules on how projects must be carried out. For instance what lines of approval must be followed, which project stakeholders should be included and other rules.
Project managers oft complain about the admin work they have to do in social club to fulfil PMO requirements. Filling out checklists or working with complicated Word templates tin be quite frustrating and time-consuming. This is something I can definitely confirm.
Also, PMOs oft have dedicated staff for collecting the project condition data and creating progress reports for management.
Responsibilities of a PMO:
- Define standards and rules for project management
- Monitor and approve projects
- Amend the success charge per unit of projects
- Provide training around project management methodologies and standards
- Create relevant documentation and templates
Why should you have a PMO?
When you lot plan to ready a PMO your get-go question should be: What'south my goal? What do I want to better or implement by creating a PMO?
There are dissimilar reason for having a PMO:
- Improve overall project success charge per unit. If many of the projects in your company neglect, exceed their budget or become delayed, then that's a good reason for having a PMO.
- Ready common standards. If every department has their ain set of templates and follows their own projection methodology, this tin can arrive hard for cross-functional projects to succeed. A PMO tin define common standards that departments have to follow.
- Ensure compliance with business organization strategy. The reason why companies run projects is because they need to innovate. They must constantly create new products or services so they won't cease up as the next Kodak. Once you lot sympathize this, y'all understand why having projects succeed is then important. A PMO tin can act as a watchdog for ensuring projects actually deliver concern value.
Setting upwards a PMO
Earlier we swoop into how you get a PMO actually ready, I want you to understand that it's going to be a long process – and for sure not an easy 1. You'll have to go the buy-in from people and overcome a great deal of resistance. Program for a year to go the PMO upward and running.
Steps for establishing a PMO:
- Stride i: Define a goal
- Step ii: Hire a team
- Pace 3: Define metrics, project execution rules and standards
- Step 4: Train your organization
Step 1: Defining a goal
First, clarify what purpose your PMO is supposed to fulfill. Y'all can find a number of reasons above. Why should you intendance near a goal? The goal will influence the later shape of your PMO: what parts accept to exist regulated with standards, what templates are required, what cardinal figures should be measured, and then on.
Step two: Hire a team
Y'all don't need a big team to get started. And you don't need to rent people from outside to build a PMO! This is i of the biggest misconceptions about PMO implementation.
An experienced project manager can gear up the entire PMO for you. Only when the PMO assumes its routine work (managing projects, reviewing project proposals, preparation beginning-time PMs) will you really need a larger team. But then you really need more people, otherwise a PMO can quickly get the bottleneck.
PMO of larger organizations are usually staffed like this:
- PMO director
- project and program managers (*)
- project controllers
- other project back up roles similar administrative administration
The PMO Director heads the department. (*) Project and program managers usually don't belong to the PMO but are part of the functional organization. Project controllers get together progress and cost data from projects and gather reports.
Read more on PMO staffing here.
Stride 3: Define metrics, project execution rules and standards
Now let's go to the formal side of establishing a PMO.
The first step is to ascertain suitable metrics to allocate projects. Metrics allow us to quickly classify projects into distinct categories, which in plow makes it easier to set specific rules for each project category.
Mutual project metrics:
- project upkeep size
- affect factor
- strategic relevance
- project duration
- chance factor
The near simple metric would exist project budget size. It goes without saying that a project with a $5 million budget should be handled and monitored more strictly than a $200K project. A million dollar project may have to be reviewed and approved by the board, whereas a $200K project could exist signed off on business unit level.
Another metric I notice very useful is project impact or complication. Some projects touch on just 1 surface area, such as finance. Other projects accept an touch on on a range of processes like sales, marketing, finance and logistics. The greater the impact of a projection on the organization, the greater the damage a failed project tin cause. That'due south why complex projects must follow stricter rules than projects that affect just ane area.
Choosing the right metrics equally well as a suitable project classification (read my article on defining a projection classification) for your organization is very important, so make sure you lot spend some time on that topic.
When it comes to defining rules for projection execution, make sure to document those in an like shooting fish in a barrel-to-understand format. This could be a uncomplicated Powerpoint titled 'How we run projects at <company>' which is shared with the projection management staff in your organization.
Rules for projection execution should cover:
- Documents and templates to be submitted
- Necessary QA deportment such as conducting a risk cess or performing a stakeholder analysis
- Important deadlines to be adhered to
- A clarification of the project approval process
- Links to other grooming material or project templates
I wouldn't recommend writing your projection standards manual from scratch. Thousands of other companies accept washed information technology earlier you. Ask another visitor if they would exist willing to share their strategy with you. They can remove whatever part in the document that contains confidential information and pass the certificate on to you.
Step four: Railroad train your organization
In one case you take set up the ground rules for project management in your organization, it's fourth dimension to go everybody on the same page. Brand a list of all stakeholders and people you'll have to train for the new procedure. This can become a huge endeavor, so if you have somebody who can take over part of the training, that'southward adept.
Preparation should include:
- directors and team managers
- plan and project managers
- procedure owners and managers
- projection administrative staff
My question to you
What has been your experience around establishing a projection direction function? What has worked well for you and what did you struggle with? I am curious to know. Leave your response in the comments below!
All-time,
Similar posts you might also like
Source: https://www.tacticalprojectmanager.com/strategy/setting-up-a-pmo
0 Response to "How To Set Up A Successful Pmo"
Post a Comment