A STAKEHOLDER-CENTRIC VIEW OF PMO TYPES 1

Louise Worsley

Projman cc

lworsley@projman.co.za

ABSTRACT

One of the most important strategic inputs for the design and set-up of PMOs is the clarification of who the
PMO stakeholders are, and what their needs are.

For any PMO structure there is a hierarchy of needs, with each requiring different types of activity and
information. In some, where the hierarchy is unstable, the PMOs suffer from the attempt to be “all things to
all people”, which, given that different types of PMOs demand different combinations of function, style and
resource capability, puts them firmly in the zone of the infeasible.

This paper summarises the trends in PMO style and structure as reported in the professional and academic
literature and presents a design approach which looks at the strategic and tactical demands placed upon a
PMO, mapped against a characterisation of two main PMO stakeholder groups - those who demand
information and services and those who supply information and services.

Drawing upon data collected in special interest forums and through an internet-based questionnaire, we look
at the impact of the key stakeholders concerns on the PMO approach and style. A preponderance of interest
from the ‘demand side’, i.e. senior management, seems to skew the PMO towards ‘control’; whereas interest
mainly from the ‘supply side’, i.e. the project manager community, skews it towards, ‘guidance’ and
consultative approaches.

Case studies are used to support the argument that stakeholder demands should influence the design of the
PMO and will ultimately influence its implementation and its ability to survive within the organisation.

This paper provides a review of the literature on PMO design and gives readers a stakeholder-centric
approach to defining the style, structure and function of a PMO.

INTRODUCTION

The project management office (PMO) has emerged in a various forms in organisations. Early references
were to PCOs – project control offices; the PSO – project support office became popular but also stood for
programme support offices, which muddied the picture as these had different roles and histories. There was
a short-lived spate of PPSOs – project and programme support offices, which has evolved into and there is
now a general move to standardise on the term, PMO – the project management office.

The changing names almost reflects the evolving and expanding responsibilities of these organisational
structures, as they and their organisations attempt to understand the position, power and business value the
PMO genuinely has.

In this paper we use the term PMO to refer to all programme and project office support functions.

1 th
Presented at the Western Cape PMSA Conference, 18-19 November, 2009

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PROJECT OFFICE TRENDS

Interest and research on the role of the PMO has been extensive in the last five years. A common focus is
to determine ‘What is the purpose of the PMO, what value should the investment in project support, deliver,
and does it?’. It is a hot topic.

For the project management community, the driver to understand and crystallise out the PMO function may
be that it sees the PMO as a mechanism to gain increased organisational positioning and political power.
The PMO does represent a step in the maturing of the project profession. It provides a ‘home’ for project
management in an organisation where previously it was at best a virtual community, spread across business
functions – often unrecognised as a discipline in its own right. The PMO is a legitimising structure in the
business organisation, allowing project management to take on similar status to other functions such as IT,
HR and Finance.

As reported in the professional press

In 2002, Gartner (working in US Government organisations) predicted that within 2 years project offices will
be established in more than 60 percent of IT-intensive organisations, and that these will often “...plan and
control project resources across the organisation”. This prediction was substantiated in 2004 through the
Forrester research survey (Forrester Research, 2004) which found that 67% of organisations had PMOs, and
that PMOs were gaining more influence – in particular this included the extended control of project
resources.

In late 2008, a report commissioned by CA (Pole to Pole Communications on behalf of CA, 2009) looked at
the take-up of PMOs in Europe. It reported that of the 294 responding organisations (from 14 European
countries)

15% did not have a PMO;

50% had a centralised PMO for the whole organisation;

35% had either a functionally-based PMO looking after projects that involved that function (the most
common model was an IT-based PMO with responsibility for IT intensive projects across the
business), or had multiple PMOs.

It also reported that the number of organisations investing in a PMO had risen in the past four years from
67% to 85% and that nearly 35% of the organisations had had some form of PMO for more than five years.

What is also clear from this most recent work is that the functions covered by PMOs vary widely.

As reported in the academic press

Academic journals strongly support the view of the great variety in the organisational context, form and
function of the PMO (Hobbs & Aubrey, 2007). This research suggests that the population of (multi-project)
PMOs shows considerable variation of many characteristics, thus creating myriad possible forms that PMOs
can and do take on. Pellegrinelli et al (Pellegrinelli & Garagna, 2009) suggest that is therefore helpful to
define PMOs according to function and represent them on a continuum from those PMOs which support
single projects through to those that support portfolios.

Figure 1 : Categorisation of PMOs (Source Pellegrinelli)

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Where the academic press differs from the professional press is in seeing PMOs as transient rather than
permanent or long-term structures.

Hobbs (Hobbs, Aubry, & Thuillier, 2008) found that over half the PMOs they researched were less than two
years old. Those that had existed for longer were under continuous pressure to renew and update their
services and rarely survived for longer than a few years in their original forms.

There are several possible explanations reasons for this. Despite the increased prevalence of the PMO, the
PMOs’ value to their organisation is still not easy to establish. PMOs often find themselves ‘hunting’ for
services that will be recognised as valuable and hence will be funded by the business. It is interesting to
note that after the first few months of what might be considered to be core PMO services, such as project
status reports and audits, many PMOs find themselves being regarded as too bureaucratic and not adding
value. Research on the topic does not provide any firm evidence that specific PMO services really do result
in improvement in project performance. Illustrative recent findings are:

• In 2004 (Xiaoyi Dai & Wells, 2004) looked at a range of PMO services and how they correlated with
overall project performance. They cited the implementation of project methods and the provision of
historical data on projects as having the greatest impact upon overall project performance.

• In 2007 (O'Leary & Williams, 2008) examined the Centres of the Excellence (CoE) initiative as
implemented and supported (at considerable cost) by UK Government. They compared the
implementation of a best practice CoE focused on providing standards and processes with the
implementation of a consultative support service for projects. “…the case study supports the view that
the conventional CoE approach of embedding ‘best practice’ control processes may have little success
in improving project delivery”

• This is supported by (Milosevic & Patanakul, 2005) who looked specifically at the impact of
standardisation on projects and found that increasing level of standardisation across projects did not
necessarily lead to improved performance on projects.

What does emerge from the academic press is the view that how PMOs add value is context-dependent, and
therefore their structure and function should, inevitably, vary across and even within organisations. This
view of the PMO is that it is a transient structure which changes in line with the changing demands of the
organisation and its stakeholder groups.

Pellegrinelli goes so far as to suggest that the PMO should be regarded as a change agent – subject to the
classic change lifecycle. Thus once the practices it introduces have become embedded within the
organisation, the PMO’s existence is no longer required. This provides explanation for the transient nature
of the PMO and the need for it to continuously reinvent. ”…arguably, a PMO’s value lies in fighting battles
that make a major difference in the performance of the organisation…” (Pellegrinelli & Garagna, 2009).

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 DEFINING THE PMO: THE MODELS

When defining the PMO, a crucial step is to identify who and precisely what the stakeholder groups want.
When project performance becomes a senior management or Board issue it is either because there is
concern about loss of control or ‘lack of visibility’ of project expenditure – a tactical matter often focusing on
individual projects; or because of stress about prioritisation of projects and resources of departmental or
enterprise portfolios and the need to create or drive value out of the investment in projects. Senior
managers demanding information to support their decision-
making is the ‘demand’ side’.
Strategic Selector Team coach
Conversely the ‘supply side’ is the project managers, the
people who provide status and other information about
projects. Their interests may be parochial, they just need a
Tactical hand to get the necessary paperwork done, or it may be more
Scorekeeper Bag carrier
professional, they are interested in developing their own and
the general capability in project management of the
community of which they are a member. They want to
Demand Supply ‘professionalise’ project management. The two groups and
their type of interest can be represented as the 2x2 grid
Figure 2: Model 1 – Stakeholders interests shown in Figure 2, with the names indicating the aspirations
of the four groups.

Clearly, these different stakeholders have different interests, and it is necessary to design the PMO that
meets their disparate needs. To create an appropriate blueprint the model analyses out the two crucial
dimensions: the control—support axis and the secure—improve axis. This gives rise to the four fundamental
types of PMO - Figure 3.

Administration PMOs focus primarily on the collation of

data, reporting on aggregated data and information
handling. It supports individual projects and is mostly
passive in operation, but can undertake asset-audit style
reviews. These are typically staffed by administrators.

Control PMOs focus on information management, being

the preferred conduit for project status reporting to senior
management. Often regarded as ‘objective; by senior
management and ‘hostile’ by projects, they concern
themselves with project variance reporting, can be
interventionist, performing project audits. They usually
have functional specialists included in the staff and they
often have some authority assigned to them.
Figure 3: Model 2 – PMO archetypes

Guidance PMOs are set up as centres for excellence and as change agents within the project community.
They are staffed by process specialists, and are proactive in influencing project performance. They tend to
provide or enable training and development of project managers as well as undertaking value-adding
reviews of projects. This type of PMO sometimes owns pools of project managers for assignment to
projects.

Partnership PMOs are involved in establishing strategic direction by advising on the enterprise project
portfolio. They are responsible for determining the ‘do-ability of candidate portfolios, they monitor portfolio
performance and maintain a view on the project capability and capacity of the organisation. These PMOs
are led by a senior manager, and are staffed by people competent in project management, but not
necessarily by ex-project managers. They tend to be more reactive than ‘guidance’ PMOs and are ‘demand
side’ driven.

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 A A A C C G G P When you combine model 1 – the
stakeholders’ level and type of
Demand N N N Y Y Y N Y interest with model 2 – type of
N Y N N N Y Y Y PMO, it is possible to design a ‘fit-
Supply
for-purpose’ PMO. In Table 1, ‘Y’
PMO N N Y N Y N Y Y indicates active interest by the
stakeholder group, and ‘N’ means
Table 1: Outcome of stakeholder interests analysis low level or disinterest. Where: A is
Admin, C is Control, G is Guidance
and P is Partnership, it is possible, by plotting the level of interest and activity of the stakeholder groups, to
predict what type of PMO tends to be implemented. (The third stakeholder group listed in the table is ‘PMO’
and reflects the fact that there often is a champion – usually in the PMO – that promotes the cause of the
PMO, and they can be influential.).

Choosing the appropriate model, therefore, is determined by our ability to select an archetype that reflects
the stakeholder outcomes in a balanced and practical fashion.

The challenge for the PMO designer is to identify the primary drivers for the PMO and balance what are
often competing agendas from the different stakeholder groups. One of the biggest problems for the
designer is where the needs have not yet been clarified and instead the stakeholders are offered a menu of
what can be done by the PMO. With this approach the most likely response is “let’s have a bit of
everything”. Apart from the obvious problems this gives the PMO manager in managing priorities it is also
the case that the style of the PMO dictates the support functions offered and the capability and resourcing
required.

TESTING THE MODELS

Type and function

In 2007 a forum of 14 organisations was consulted on their PMO practices. PMO type Number of
In the introductory briefing meeting, model 1 and model 2 were presented. companies
The four archetypes were described and reinforced through discussions.
Administration 2
Though many of the participants felt that their PMOs exhibited Control 5
characteristics of all four types, and in some cases suggested that the
nature of their PMO had changed over time, e.g. starting as ‘control’ and
Guidance 2
then becoming ‘admin’, the majority (ten companies) felt that they could
characterise their PMOs as sitting fundamentally in one of them. See
Partner 1
Table 2
Mixed models 4
These ten were then asked to review a list of PMO functions (derived from
(Office of Government & Commerce, 2004) and (Hobbs & Aubrey, A multi-
phase research programme investigating project management offices Table 2: Forum -the PMO types
(PMOs): the results of Phase 1, 2007)) and indicate how much time and
how much importance their PMO attributed to each one. The results of this analysis were cross-checked
between the companies to check for uniformity of interpretation creating a list of the functions characteristic
of each PMO type.

Table 3 lists the rationalised results of this process for three of the types – it was found to be difficult to get
consensus on the view of the ‘partnership’ type and this is therefore not included.

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Table 3: Rationalised PMO functions against PMO type
Functional area Administration
The PMO keep copies of
Planning project plans
The PMO maintains a
procedures/ templates
Procedures library
The PMO collects and
records data about project
Budgeting costs
The PMO routinely prepares
Procedures project status reports
The PMO maintains
baselines to monitor
Performance performance
The PMO maintains project
records and archives them
Quality for use in future projects
The PMO attends and
minutes regular project
Audit/review reviews
The PMO books training
courses for our project
Capability managers
The PMO records and
Risks monitors project risks
The PMO records the status
of projects up to their close
Project closure down
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Control
The PMO conducts reviews
to determine whether project
plans comply with
organisational procedures
The PMO enforces
documented procedures for
managing projects
The PMO helps prepare cost
estimates prior to the
establishing of a project
budget
The PMO collects standard
measures (metrics) and
analyses them to assess
performance on projects
The PMO routinely analyses
and tracks variances from
the plan/ schedule or in cost/
productivity.
The PMO maintains project
management quality
standards
The PMO conducts project
audits and follows up to
ensure that identified
corrective actions are taken
The PMO helps establish
qualifications and criteria to
recruit and assign project
managers
The PMO monitors risks and
risk trends to ensure that
they are being kept under
control
The PMO conducts final
project reviews (Post
Implementation Reviews)
and publishes the record of
this to all participants
6
Guidance
The PMO reviews new
projects to decide whether a
specific project management
methodology should be
followed
The PMO maintains
standards of project best
practice and advises project
teams
The PMO collects resource
utilisation and productivity
data, making it available to
assist with resource planning
on projects
The PMO ensures that
project management
information serves the needs
of the organisation and
assists senior management /
programme directorate in
decision making
The PMO advises project
teams on the control of
variances in project costs,
timescales and benefits
The PMO helps to assess
the overall quality of
individual projects and offers
advice and support in
improving quality
The PMO helps identify and
classify causes of poor
project performance and
suggests improvements to
project management
processes
The PMO seeks to improve
project management and
team capabilities to
appropriately serve the
organisation's needs
The PMO ensures that
senior management are
aware of the overall portfolio
risk profile and that
resources are deployed to
appropriately manage these
risks
The PMO analyses the
outcomes of final project
reviews and uses this to
propagate lessons learned/
best practice
Results from a wider survey
During 2008/2009 the profiles derived from these consultations was made available for interested groups to
identify the type of their own PMO, via the internet. In total 282 data items were collected via this
questionnaire approach.

A common problem with freely available unsolicited questionnaire responses is that it is not clear why or with
what intent and mind-set the questionnaires were completed. While we know that some respondents were
members of the CITI Centre of Excellence Club, and had been guided towards the site – others were
completely unsolicited, and some of the responses clearly show evidence of ‘trying out’ the questionnaire
with no intent of filling in real data.

The data presented here has had removed from it: those responses where no name or company have been
identified; and/or where there is evidence that the responses were random (e.g. the same column was filled
in each time). Multiple responses from the same company were consolidated into one response, and where
there is disagreement on the PMO type within a company, the data from the ‘manager’ has been used in the
summary data. Data items from 142 different companies were left for analysis. Of those responding to the
data, 63% are working in a PMO either as the manager or as a member of staff. The rest may be assumed
to be users or stakeholders of the PMO with 17% being project or programme managers and the remaining
20% identifying themselves in the ‘other’ category.

Using the categorisation already described, we are able to

PMO Types characterise the different type of PMOs. Figure 4 illustrates
the percentage split of PMO types in the population
Admin Control Guidance Mixed surveyed. Where the questionnaire results did not
conclusively indicate a particular PMO profile the type has
been identified as ‘mixed’. A fifth of the companies
participating in the survey sit in this category. This indicates
21% that the functions they are performing range from purely
27%
administrative tasks through to providing ‘centre-of-
excellence’ type support. As expanded upon later in the
paper, this creates major challenges for the positioning and
31% 21% resourcing of the PMO.

In total, 15 different industry sectors are presented in the

data. Figure 5 shows the PMO types for eight of the
sectors, each of which has at least 6 items of data
Figure 4: Percentage of PMO types represented in the analysis. It appears from the results that
there may be difference

Sector PMO types

in the types of PMOs
adopted in different
sectors.
120%
100%
‘Guidance’ type PMOs
80%
and project maturity of
60% the organisation do not
40% Mixed correlate. If, on the other
20% Guidance hand, the type of PMO is
0% driven by the demands of
Control the stakeholder group
than the results suggest
Admin
that the groups and
demands vary across
sectors.

Figure 5: Sector analysis of PMO types

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In Table 4 we have re-summarised the stakeholder interests from the ‘demand side’ and ‘supply side’
stakeholders and identified the top three sectors for each PMO type

Stakeholder interests PMO type Top three sectors for PMO

type
Strategic interests from the ‘demand side’ –with strong Governance Government – Central
influence from members of the PMO community Non-profit institution
Finance & Banking
Tactical interests from the ‘demand side’ are typical Control Engineering
where senior managers feel unsighted, and need to Technology
understand the status of projects and/or projects are Government – Central
perceived to be out of control

Tactical interests from the ‘supply side’ are found where Admin Government – local
the project management community needs more Utilities
resource – “just give us a hand...”. Non-profit institutions

Table 4: Stakeholder interests, PMO types and sectors

From experience in working with stakeholders in the different sectors, these findings seem intuitively correct.
In the UK, the Centre of Excellence initiative has resulted in a proliferation of central PMOs with strong
central governance. This structure predisposes the organisation to a ‘guidance’ approach. Whether it is a
result of, or results in, a more mature and successful project environment is unclear (O'Leary & Williams,
2008). There is evidence that the government project environments do have difficulty in retaining
experienced, high performing project managers (Worsley, 2008). In this circumstance there is a need for a
supportive, guidance structure to help develop project capability within the project community.

The engineering and technology environments are generally distinguished by the focus on delivery of
projects. The ‘demand side’ is very much interested in ensuring visibility of the safe and predictable delivery
of projects. In the engineering environment, PMOs are often set up around specific programmes – it is not
uncommon for there to be several programmes offices each servicing the individual needs of their own
‘business-unit’ stakeholders. The experience and technical capability of project managers in the engineering
sectors is generally high (Worsley, 2008) and the engineering culture encourages local mentoring and
support. Attempts to centralise project control and guidance are often resisted as out-of-culture.

The ‘admin’ PMO is, arguably, the least valuable of all the PMO types to the overall business. This said,
where project management expertise is hard to find, then administrative support can be used to ensure that
the limited PM capability is focused on the higher value tasks. It is not surprising therefore, that in resource-
strapped environments such as local government; we commonly find the ‘admin’ PMO type. It is less
obvious why ‘Utilities” should have them though, as we shall see in the case studies that follow, PMOs
sometimes end up in ‘admin’ type – not because of overt strategy but because they revert to it as a result of
lack of continuing interest from the stakeholder groups.

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CASE STUDIES

In a follow-up to the questionnaire-based research, several organisations were approached to participate in

structured interview sessions. The aim of these sessions was to explore further the history of the PMO –
how it had come into being and why – and the nature of the stakeholder demands. Four of these are
presented as mini-cases here.

Case study 1 Loss of purpose PMO type: ‘Mixed’ with skew to

‘admin’

Sector: Non profit organization PMO size: > 20 staff Age: > 3 years
History:
This PMO had been in existence for eight years. It had originally been set up to meet the needs of a major change
programme. It supported this programme for three years, starting with a staff of 3 and growing to a FTE staff of 12. The
major stakeholders during this period were the programme team, in particular the programme manager and the Main
Board. The programme was extremely high profile and therefore reporting at the most senior levels was required both
within the organisation also to external groups (Central Government). During this period the PMO type was closest to
‘control’.
The PMO was considered a major contribution to the successful delivery of the programme outcomes and when the
programme completed it was decided to transform the local PMO in to a central business-wide PMO. A new Head of the
PMO was recruited, and the stakeholder group for the PMO hugely expanded to include interested project managers
across the organisation. Senior management and Board level interest in the PMO, however, was noticeably less.
Enterprise–wide financial and project monitoring systems were introduced across a much wider group of projects as was
the project governance processes. This increased the administrative overhead on projects and in response to project
manager demands for support the PMO increased in size to over 60 staff. Many of the PMO staff had low levels of
experience in project management, and the support offered to project managers was primarily administrative and
secretariat services.
While demand for the PMO services seems inexhaustible from the project manager community, there is at the same time
decreasing interest in it from the community and increasing unease from the senior management community as to its
value.

Case study 2: Focus on value PMO type: Guidance

Sector: Financial services PMO size: > 5 Age: > 3 years

History:
This PMO has been in existence for 5 years. It came about as a result of a sharp increase in mandatory projects within
the financial services and insurance sectors. Project management and the efficient delivery of high profile, potentially
high risk projects raised the awareness to Board level for the need for a safe project delivery process. With much of the
IT handled by an external service agency it was felt important to have a powerful internal ‘control’ PMO. The Head of the
PMO was an experienced line manager who had over twenty years’ experience in the business.
Initially, the stakeholders for the PMO were the Board and the small but professional project management community -
the Head of the PMO reported directly to the Board and sat on all business prioritisation committees.
In the first three years of existence the PMO had 3 permanent staff and its focus was on disseminating project best
practice through training and the setting up of an internet repository of project management lessons learned. More
recently, training and the dissemination and policing of standards have been transferred to local PMOs, and the focus of
the central PMO has been on ensuring projects deliver the desired outcomes. Its stakeholders are now project sponsors
and the Board. Resourcing has remained constant (not counting resources associated with satellite local support
process), although the type of resourcing has changed. The PMO is now staffed by experienced project managers, some
of whom work part-time, or are seconded in to the PMO.

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Case study 3: Success doesn’t mean longevity PMO type: Control

Sector: Public corporation PMO size: < 5 staff Age: < 2 years
History:
This was a PMO specifically set-up to provide visibility of a global change programme. The stakeholders were the
programme manager and the Board, which required high visibility on the progress of the programme. This information
was used by the Board to apply pressure to regional district managers to ensure that the operational changes required
were made.
The PMO was staffed by external contractors with considerable experience in managing and running PMOs – all of them
had at least 7 years experience in project management.
The PMO was set up at the beginning of the programme and disbanded at the end, following the successful roll-out of the
business change. The PMO was considered to be a major contributor to this success. No PMO has been set up to
replace

Case study 4: Low value to no value PMO type: Admin

Sector: Finance PMO size: < 10 staff Age: > 3 years

History:
The PMO was set up within IT to monitor and provide information on IT projects. The stakeholders were the Head of IT,
the CIO and the various project boards. The project managers were required to supply data but were otherwise
uninvolved.
The PMO staff was a mix of low experience project managers, and administration staff. An IT project portfolio control
system was implemented alongside a financial costing package, but they were very poorly integrated. All projects were
expected to provide fairly detailed low level data to these two systems. The PMO activities were largely associated with
the collection of data, and the preparation of reports which attempted to reconcile the data across the two systems.
Although originally conceived as a ‘control’ PMO, the burden of administration, the calibre of staff and the interest levels
of senior management in the data provided after the first few months, resulted in it becoming an ‘admin’ type. The PMO
stumbled along in this form for 4 years and was then disbanded.

Case study commentary

It is not possible in this paper to report in detail on the follow through discussions. A summary of the
essential findings have been listed below:

• ‘Mixed’ type PMOs occur either at the start of the life of the PMO or where the major stakeholder is
the PMO with the other stakeholders groups less interested and the PMO seems to be in a
permanent state of transition. We found no mixed PMOs which had existed in this form for more
than 2 years.

• ‘Admin’ PMOs can be valued by the project manager community though often seen as an overhead
by the senior management group. Once embedded in the organisation they may survive for
surprisingly long periods of time.

• ‘Control’ PMOs tend to be set up in response to a specific need such as a programme or major
project. ‘Control’ PMOs which have existed for more than 2 years often transform either to ‘admin’ or
‘guidance’, depending upon stakeholder interest, the PMO positioning in the organisation, and the
experience and capability of the staff in the PMO. The cause of the change can be traced to the
reducing value of the information as project performance stabilises. An exception to this rule is
where the organisation does contract project management.

• ‘Guidance’ PMOs generally start their life with the embedding of best practices and project methods.
Their longevity varies and seems to be related to the ability of the PMO to engage with stakeholders
outside of the PM community. This PMO is particularly likely to have its ‘value to the business’
questioned. This is possibly because of the combination of high impact upon the business (sets
project governance and rules around projects generally) and the tendency to be seen as serving the
PM community rather then the business concerns.

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DISCUSSION

The incidence of PMOs in business has grown rapidly over the last five years, but the professional and
academic press agree that the actual form a PMO takes and its utility to the business varies widely and is
dependent upon the business context in which it is implemented.

In the project professional, and in particular the IT, publications (Forrester Research, 2004), (Pole to Pole
Communications on behalf of CA, 2009) there is an increasing trend to regard the PMO as an enduring
business functional structure. Enterprise PMOs are commonly promoted as an essential tool to any
organisation which wishes to control and monitor its investment in projects. For this to be credible, then a
permanent ‘home’ for projects and the project community is necessary. Thus, this view could be interpreted
as being in response to commercial pressure to establish organisational structures which warrant expensive
IT portfolio systems support. Whether the PMO will eventually become a functional unit, like IT or HR, is
debateable – however the need for project championship, support and guidance does seem well established.

‘Mixed’ type PMOs rarely survive the test of time – possibly because it simply is not possible to be all things
to all people. Other types of PMO may also have a limited life, but some do endure. To do so successfully
usually involves the purposeful transformation of the PMO to meet changing stakeholder constituents and
shifting demands. The transformation though is not a gradual evolution of process and staff, but a step
change with changes to mind-set, systems, resourcing and people capability. In the most successful
examples – the change involved a change in leadership and positioning in the organisation.

Academic research points to instability and transience in the role and longevity of PMOs. Perhaps the model
of the PMO as a change agent (Pellegrinelli & Garagna, 2009) is appropriate. In which case, we will need to
understand more about the lifecycle of the PMO – how it comes into being, creates value and is successfully
terminated leaving enduring benefits in the organisation.

Our models, presented here, suggest that in common with all business change, the PMO is ultimately
defined by the needs and desires of its stakeholder community. Anecdotal evidence from PMO cases
suggest that is the PMO is most likely to be perceived as successful and gain organisational acceptance
when it is clearly aligned with the agendas of well-defined stakeholder groups.

Having a PMO is no longer unusual, making a good one remains hard, but getting the right one is the real
challenge. Even when the work’s been done well and the PMO has delivered against its promise, the needs
of the organisation and the project community will change – hopefully because of the success of the PMO
itself, and so it will have to re-invent itself. The touchstone of when and how will be, who is interested and
what they are interested in.

© Projman cc, 2009 11

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