Going from PMO to Enterprise-wideMO (EMO)

The term Project Management Office (PMO) is a well understood term but the application and implementation can vary from being a supportive PMO, a directive PMO or a consultative PMO. Likewise, should the ‘P’ stand for Project, Program or Portfolio? My view is simple, a PMO should do all of the above and strive to get to calling itself an Enterprise Management Office (EMO). Let’s not fool ourselves, to go from inceptions (which is generally a Directive Project Management Office) to an EMO, can take up to 5 years. This is startling given the fact that recent surveys have shown the lifetime of a standard PMO is 2 ½ years.

Traditionally, PMOs have been departmentally based and effective only within their own departments or silos of responsibility. To execute an efficient EMO, this is one of the major barriers, an Enterprise-wide MO must be seen (by the organisation) as a method of transmitting project management information and encouraging company-wide procedures and tools bringing costs down and improving performance. Should you transition from a thinking of departmental PMO to an Enterprise-wide MO? My answer is simple … this should be the objective of every PMO, whether it is the reality is a very different subject.

Look at your organisation and determine if some of these changes might benefit how you look at project delivery:

1. Is an alignment between project delivery and strategic goals required versus an alignment between project delivery and specific department goals (IT, HR, etc.)? 
2. Is a need to understand business drivers / prioritisations required versus a ‘who shouts loudest mentality?
3. Is there a need for a multi-function project data leading to comparison and knowledge sharing of resources, facilities, etc. versus a reliance on tools (reports and software) and methodologies (contract and people management) to manage the enterprise?
4. Is there a need for project competency development across the organisation versus a focus on who is best placed to deliver projects completed on-time, within budget and to customer’s satisfaction? 
5. Is there a need to understand risk across that organisation rather than ask the projects to fight the losing battle of risk assessment and mitigation?

If you are answering YES to any of the above, then let’s start to talk about the need to transition from a PMO to an EMO. The next question you might ask is how to do it. Well like everything, you need support and you need to business case this to ensure your management team understand the rationale to visibly support the PMO and its new approach to project management governance. Stay tuned for detailed steps on how to transition from PMO to EMO.