PMO FAILURE

FACTORS

Abbas Jafri
03-298151-027 MSPM - III

PMO- Definition
A project management office,
abbreviated as PMO, is a group or
department within a business, agency
or enterprise that defines and
maintains standards for project
management within the organization.

PMO FAILURE FACTORS

Authority-less PMO
The Lack of Executive Stakeholders
commitment
More Tactical PMO than Strategic one
Inexperience PMO Resources
PMO works as an Audit Function

Authority-less PMO
PMO is not given the appropriate authority by

senior management.
The project managers will interpret any request for
information or to comply with standards as
optional.
This will result in the PMO not being able to collect
the required project inputs meaning because project
manager give little or less information because of
little or less authority of PMO

The Lack of Executive

Stakeholders commitment
A successful PMO implementation needs to

have executive commitment, support, and

involvement
This point also like to authority as well
Senior management cannot be in every
meeting, but they do need to empower the
PMO manager to make decisions as well as
provide political and logistical support to the
PMO

More Tactical than Strategic

Focusing on tactical, day-to-day project

execution is fine but PMO leaders need to

ensure that they do not lose sight of the
bigger, strategic picture.
If a PMO leader is unable to understand
and communicate the business challenges
It should not be like a cookie cutter

Inexperience PMO Resources

If

senior management hires the

inexperience PMO resources by junior or
inexperienced resources. It will result in
the failure of PMO
Without an analytical mind and metricsbased understanding of resource capacity,
it is impossible to match demand with the
actual supply of human resources.

PMO works as Audit Function

Projects manager dislike this activity
Unfortunately some PMOs work as PMO police where

they are looking to expose weaknesses and problems so

as to expose the project manager
This breaks down the relationship between PMO and

project managers that results that minimum information

being reported and the PMO not really understanding
where the REAL problems are in the projects.

References
http://www.keyedin.com/keyedinprojects/article/wh
y-pmos-fail-5-shocking-pmo-statistics
http://www.level5partners.com/resources/blog/top5-reasons-pmos-fail-and-how-avoid-them
https://www.pmmajik.com/5-reasons-pmos-fail/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PMO