PMO - ITM Platform | Projects Programs Portfolio

delivery service process office flat 3d web isometric infographic concept vector. exterior and interior isometry rooms with people staff workers. warehouse management. creative people collection. When project after project is being completed with delays of above 20%-30% unrelated to major issues, executors complain of poor coordination and PMs report progress without a unified model, you might be in a situation that would benefit from the centralization of your governance in a Project Management Office (PMO).

PMOs are versatile: they are adaptable to the nature of the organization that creates them. Therefore, when implementing a PMO in your company, you will need to decide what the roles and responsibilities of the PMO will be. By understanding what needs to be addressed and the issues currently faced at your organization, you can shape the PMO as a response to those factors.

Internal Evaluation

The first step to determine the most appropriate type of PMO for a company is to know what the expectations of the PMO are. Ask yourself and your internal customers the following questions:

What are the main problems or areas of improvement within the organization? Have you detected inefficiencies in any of our processes?

What is the balance between formal and informal communication flows and reporting from the company? Is the company coordinating too much work in a spontaneous and decentralized way? Does this pose a problem for the evaluation of management processes? These questions are especially important in relation to the size of the organization: while small teams can afford a high degree of informal communication, a growing the business must follow the path of standardization. It’s vital to persuade all staff to adopt new procedures and to identify the risk low adoption.

What is more central: operations or projects? PMOs are designed to work with projects, not operations. If the latter are predominant, you may use a PMO to frame operations in a broader scope or to integrate them with other sections of the company. However, this is a very indirect form of projectization.

Is the company currently achieving its main objectives? If not, why might this be?

What are the measures to adopt if the organization does not meet the intended objectives?

When finally implementing a PMO, you must decide what a successful PMO might entail, and how to know if it is not operating as it should.

Objectives, size, maturity and corporate culture

The structure and objectives of a PMO depend on the degree of efficiency required by the company. For example, a PMO can serve to manage both a business for profit as well as any other humanitarian purposes. However, more often than not economic profitability takes precedence when setting up a PMO.

Another aspect to consider is the size of the company: Project scope, type of product, target audience, etc. will vary. While a small business can use a less structured approach, in a larger company the number of simultaneous processes that can potentially coexist multiplies, and so does the importance of standardization and structured reporting systems.

It’s particularly important to maintain the balance between support and control. Focusing too much on control can cause discomfort among workers and increase resistance to change, while offering too much support can lead to excessive documentation and training no one will actually use.

One possible solution is to begin with less demanding PMO models with supporting functions, and gradually pivot towards controlling and directive approaches.

Selecting the most appropriate PMO for my company

Here is a list of situations where it would be advisable to choose a specific type of PMO. Although the classification of the 3 types of PMO remains orientative, it can serve as a good starting point to size the scope of the project and identify good practices.

You should choose a Supportive PMO if:

Your company lacks methodologies, procedures and project management tools.
Project Managers have not developed specific skills in project management
Your company lacks adequate training programs and updated project management.

You should look for a controlling PMO if:

There is a moderate project management culture in your company.
Project managers have basic knowledge in current PM standards.
The organization is accustomed to multidisciplinary projects.
Project management standards and compliance practices are implemented.
The supportive PMO is already implemented.

The directive PMO would be best if:

The company has successfully implemented the previous two types of PMO.
There is an established project-based mentality.
Schemes to monitor all processes with structured reporting systems are effectively established.

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Project Management Offices (PMOs) organize and economize resources by establishing protocols and documentation that normalize, consolidate and centralize project management.

When implementing a PMO it is necessary to recognize the inadequacies of current project management capabilities, what needs to change and how a PMO can bring about this change. However, there is no one recommendation to effectively manage the change. The goal of a PMO depends greatly on the context of the organization as well as various factors such as the macro economy, the size of the organization and the capacitation of project management staff.

Nevertheless, the most important factor will be how well the PMO responds to system failures. Naturally, every situation will be different, and therefore the solutions will have to be adapted accordingly.

Although it is risky to offer recommendations on such circumstantial cases (and to accept them!) categorizing the different forms of PMO to suit the situation can be beneficial. A classic typology of the different forms of PMO is in William Casey and Wendi Peck’s "Choosing the right PMO setup" article (2001). Casey and Peck begin by recognizing that the PMO is often used as a panacea – but there is no universal medicine.

His typology is based on three metaphors: a PMO can be a "weather station" a "control tower" or a "resource pool".

Type 1: The "weather station" PMO

Sometimes, customers feel that they are poorly informed about the on-goings of the project. Their perception is that they are investing time, money and hope into the project without detailed information.

It’s also common for clients to have ordered several projects simultaneously and then receive differing information about the progress of each project, in different formats, with different styles and types of data. Streamlining decisions based on such heterogeneous information is rough.

The solution to this problem is to implement a PMO whose mission is to provide objective, well-structured, and comparable factual information. By providing templates for reports, information can be presented uniformly and predictably, allowing for the efficient extraction of information.

Example customer concerns that the “weather station” PMO must answer are:

What is the current status of the project? To what degree have the initial objectives been met?
What has been invested or how much has the dedicated capital contributed? Is the planned budget sufficient? How much of the total initial budget has already been spent?
What are the main risks or problems that may occur during project implementation?

However, this type of PMO is merely informative, which means they do not have the authority to coordinate or to make decisions. They serve purely to inform any interested party and the information may assist the Project Managers to make better decisions.

If you think it is necessary to implement a PMO that makes decisions and solves project issues, you should opt for another model.

Type 2: The "control tower" PMO

This type of PMO can be used in combination with the previous model. In fact, both may construct a suitable supplementation in which the first model identifies and monitors problems, whereby the additional functions of the PMO to ensure that the project complies with established standards.

The functions of this type of PMO are:

1. Setting standards for project management. The standards serve as a methodological reference for the project managers. They must adapt as much as possible, whilst also having a certain degree of flexibility to respond to market changes in real time. The establishment of standards also includes the following aspects:

Setting the desired level of risk.
The organization of HR that are responsible for carrying out the project.
The distribution of tasks.
Channels of communication and information that will keep the team, management as well as customers updated.

2. The choice of methodologies for the measurement and analysis of results. It must establish quantitative systems to monitor project progress in real time in order to detect any deficiencies and to take corrective action to minimize the impact on the initial plan.

3. Compliance and rising standards. The constant application of corrective measures can be adjusted in the initial plan in order to meet the established standards. Depending on the maturity of the PMO and the degree of compliance of the organization, it may also be important to review the standards from a new perspective.

Naturally, when the degree of compliance is low, it may be beneficial to review the standards "downward" to bring them to a more realistic level.

Type 3: The "resource" PMO

This third type PMO usually occurs in very large companies where a high degree of specialization is required and where it can mobilize human resources to new projects with relative ease.

For example, a project manager may be assigned to a project, but does not have the desired skill set to manage the project. In this case it is necessary to have a location where all project managers are organized as if they were products in a catalog. When you need a Project Manager who is an expert in a particular field of knowledge, you can easily search for and find specific experts that meet the requirements. This ensures that the project manager has the necessary training and experience to match the desired quality and, therefore, ensures the best managers are on the appropriate projects.

This interpretation of the PMO does not guarantee that the right projects are carried out or that they are carried out in the best way; only that the elected Project Managers are the most suitable for the project. This is a good foundation on which to maintain success, along with other factors such as good communication, and a skilled and motivated workforce, etc.

Once the appropriate project manager is selected, they must be allowed enough freedom to perform their work as they deem appropriate.

So what is the best type of PMO?

As explained previously in this article, each company and each project has different goals and aspirations. The type of PMO that will be best suited for your organization will depend on the maturity of a company, its scope and your needs. You may find different aspects from different types of PMO are what you need, and draw inspiration to tackle change freely.

This is the first of a series of articles of posts on Project Management Offices. The next three articles will focus on each of the PMO models explained above.

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Why does ISO have two sets of standards on project management?

These two sets of standards are complementary, not interchangeable. There is one set for project management (21500) and another for quality management systems in the field of projects (10006). Neither of them is subject to certification. ISO 9001/2008 provides certification on issues corresponding to these standards.

Implement ISO-based project management with ITM Platform

Now we are going to explain the difference between both:

ISO 10006/2003: is not a set of standards on project management. It is a set of standards on quality management systems in projects. The purpose of these standards is to offer additional guidelines - not requirements - to companies that clarify issues related to technical management. ISO 10006/2003 focuses on the management system used to manage quality in projects and is very useful for strong parent companies that wish to adopt ISO 9001/2008 standards and obtain certification.
ISO 21500/2012: is a specific set of standards for project management. It offers a guide - not a series of requirements - and is therefore not subject to certification. ISO 21500/2012 focuses on project management, processes and management areas, and coincides with such bodies of knowledge as PMBOK. It is useful for companies that wish to standardize and improve their project management. It is interesting to note that the two sets of standards do indeed overlap at certain points - hence their complementary nature - regarding the manner in which a project should be managed (‘best practices’ under 21500 and ‘quality management system’ under 10006). By applying and putting these standards into practice, all project-related work undertaken by an organization can be significantly improved.

The most immediate effect of ISO in project management is an emergence of global standards in this market due to an international agreement on project management principles and guidelines; in other words, organizations and professionals that manage and run projects are now able to use the same concepts and structures in their contractual and working relationships with clients, partners, suppliers and other stakeholders. This is facilitating the expansion of project-based businesses worldwide. Hence, ISO-based project management provides companies with a strategic advantage.

Another very important effect can be found in employment-related issues, because project management teams can be created or assembled under a contract that will comprise the definition of a scope or certain requirements, a set deadline, a forecast cost, a geographic area and the stakeholders involved. This implies the involvement of professionals from numerous specialized field and nationalities, requiring swift and temporary collaborations between groups. The flexibility, effectiveness and efficiency of these groups will depend on knowing and applying the management processes agreed upon globally under the ISO international standards on project management. In this regard, the education and training of professionals in project management skills gains additional importance as this might now refer to such professional certificates as the PMP® from the PMI® based on knowledge of the PMBOK Guide (Chapter 3 of which coincides with ISO 21500 by over 90%). ISO-based project management is an executive advantage for professionals who manage projects.

ISO Standards 10006 and 21500 relate to international knowledge, such as PMBOK, PRINCE2 and ICB3.0 on project management. They are not subject to certification but have also been included in knowledge standards that are subject to certification, such as ISO 9001/2008 and the PMP® from the PMI®.

Other posts you may be interested in:

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The duties of a PMO include assessing and planning which projects to carry out, a task that usually becomes an exercise in reaching consensus and seeking balance. Let us look at a practical example. Let us suppose that our PMO starts preparing budgets a few months before the start of the next financial year. This preparation can be compared to crossing a ravine on a rope, just like a tightrope walker might do.

In one hand, the tightrope walker holds the list of projects to be carried out in the coming financial year, the economic assessment of those projects, the resources needed to complete them and the overall strategy of the company, etc.

In their other hand they hold the demand, comprising the ideas and needs of all the business units, which will have been previously established by the company’s steering committee through a process of strategic planning.

However, demand from business units does not tend to be organized but rather exists in the form of ideas that compete between one another in an incoherent fashion. When sponsors see that their wishes might not be met, this is usually compounded by their attempts to manage their own projects without support from the PMO.

In this article, we propose a system for surviving the project planning process that involves including the executive team in the project evaluation and selection criteria to thus seek consensus during the early stages of the process.
It basically revolves around a stage-based system that tries to isolate each one until a selection scenario can be reached.

Stage 1. Assess the project targets and assign weighting factors

This stage takes place prior to the project and its management per se. The goal is to extract targets or criteria from the strategic plan and assign a value or weighting to them. Various methods can be used to do this. For this article, we have chosen a method called “peer assessment”.

In turn, this process can be undertaken using a variety of media; either an application or a spreadsheet. Regardless of the medium used, we will obtain a value for the objectives and an order of priority. Below is an example result from the above-mentioned peer assessment.

The important thing to notice is not the correction from a content perspective but rather the composition of people who complete this assessment. The ideal scenario is one in which this is carried out by the steering committee. It will thus disassociate itself from the foundations underpinning the decisions ahead.

In the case of large organizations, this process can be repeated by each business unit, with the possibility of different priorities being established for the same objectives or even different objectives.

Stage 2. Assess the projects according to those objectives

The next step will be to compare the value contributions made by each of the projects to each of the business objectives. This stage can be undertaken in parallel to the stage described above or even disregarding it entirely.

In this example, we have used a qualitative method with ‘Harvey Balls’, in which the rows are projects and the columns are objectives. We can therefore decide whether the project contributes more or less towards achieving the objective.

As in the previous case, these evaluations offer a series of ‘base 100’ scores for the projects. However, the key here is that the projects are not assessed on their own merit but are rather weighted according to the previous objective assessment.
Following these corrections, the result would be something like this:

Stage 3. Project selection

Thanks to the previous stages, selecting which projects to carry out will now be a much more objective and simpler process based on budget restrictions and the application of priorities to the value contribution criteria.

In this example, the star project - the most costly and the one contributing the greatest value individually - could actually be rejected because it provides less (35%) than the sum of other more modest projects (52%), the total cost of which is also lower.

In conclusion, being organized and using the right systems can provide numerical and real data rather than intuitive ideas.

By working in the manner described above, the life of a PMO can be greatly simplified:

Because management has been involved in the assessment process, especially of the objectives and criteria.
Because the decision-making method used is scientific and professional.
Because it stimulates the rest of the organization into adopting a cross-cutting and objective approach to the initiatives, which will also be better assessed.

This article offered a way of focusing the strategic planning of projects in a more robust fashion and strengthening the role played by the PMO within an organization.

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One possible definition of schedule would be a list of items or processes in a project that also includes their planned start and completion dates.
The schedule only includes information about the time allocated to the project and to each one of its stages. It does not include any other characteristics related to the project planning, such as the scope, the cost, the resources needed, etc.

How is a schedule visually represented?
A number of different schedule types exist depending on how they are visually represented. The most common are described below.

Gantt Chart
This is probably the most frequently used graphical representation of a schedule. It consists of representing the tasks as bars along a timeline that is created along the X axis.
Its main advantage is the ease with which the start and end dates of each project can be seen, as well as their duration and overlaps with other tasks.

Also in its favor is the fact that most employees are used to using them, meaning that only a short learning period is required to be able to use them efficiently.

Pert Chart
This representation of a schedule does not consider a timeline but only the tasks and the relationships that exist between them.

Each task is usually represented as a box containing the constituent processes. The boxes are structured in a time-based sequential order in which they will be completed and according to relationships of causality.

In other words, the tasks to be completed first occupy the boxes located furthest to the left. The tasks that follow in time occupy boxes located further to the right.

The use of arrows enables relationships of causality and dependency to be created between the processes. A task has a relationship of dependency or causality with those tasks from which it receives an arrow.

Milestone Schedule
A milestone is an important event in the development of a project. Hence, not all tasks are milestones. Key project delivery dates, important meetings or any other event related to company activity that is particularly important are usually considered as milestones.

It may comprise an image obtained from the simplification of others, especially a Gantt chart, or it may be produced independently.

Baseline and Updated Schedule
This is a benchmark schedule. After the schedule for a project has been drafted, it is approved by the company steering committee. This is the schedule that will serve as the benchmark or baseline for project oversight. A new schedule will be drawn over this one in real time, usually in a different color, to represent the tasks as they are completed. This facilitates rapid comparison between the planned schedule and the real schedule.

Regardless of the type of schedule you prefer, using modern software that is based in the cloud and synchronized to all your devices will help you know the status of your company’s projects at all times, thereby ensuring proper schedule compliance.

At ITM Platform, we work to offer you the best project management tool that adapt to your needs and at more than competitive prices. What are you waiting for? Try it now!

Author: Juan José Delgado Community Manager & Blogger of ITM Platform

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The life cycle of a project comprises the set of phases into which a project is organized from start to finish. A phase is a set of inter-related project activities that generally concludes with delivery of a partial or complete product. Some simple projects only require one phase while other, more complicated projects require a significant number of phases and sub-phases.

ITM Platform allows you to reuse and adapt the most appropriate life cycles with project templates, try it now for free.

The life cycle of each project is defined by the phase model used in each case and this is usually determined by the organization, industry or even technology required for the project. It would be impossible to provide a generic description of the phases for all types of project. However, reference is sometimes made to a generic life cycle structure that consists of the following phases:

• Project Start

• Organization and Preparation

• Completion of Work

• Project Close

This generic life cycle structure should not be confused with the Project Management Process Groups defined in PMBOK. The generic structure of the project life cycle is a generic model relating to the organization of project phases and not the organization of processes established by the PMI. Neither should it be confused with the product life cycle on which the project is based. This is a generic life cycle model that can be used as a benchmark, especially when wishing to communicate project progress to people who are less accustomed to this type of management.

In practice, there is no one perfect way to organize phases for all types of project. Although some standard models exist in certain industries, projects can vary significantly between one another. Some projects will only have one single phase, while others may consist of two, three, four or even more.

Regardless of the number of phases within a project, they all possess similar characteristics:

• Each phase is focused on a specific task.

• Phases are usually aimed at producing a deliverable that must be available at the end of the phase

• The end of a phase closes with a review of the deliverable and sometimes with approval of that deliverable

Organizations and the various methodologies and industries have gradually defined more or less standard project life cycle models. This standardization is accompanied by the necessary adaptation by each team to each project. The life cycle greatly depends on the nature of the specific project and the style adopted by the project team or organization. To correctly manage the established standards and necessary adaptation to the specific needs of each project, organizations use such tools as ITM Platform to allow them to reuse and adapt the most suitable life cycles by using templates or base projects with specific project phase structures as a benchmark.