Project Management Office
Every business conducts projects. Every project yields lessons. It is good to remember the lessons learned from each project to avoid making the same mistakes or re-inventing the wheel during the next project. A growing number of businesses, large and small, are entrusting the lessons learned from projects to a formal, internal Project Management Office (PMO).
A Project Management Office is a department, or even just one person, within an organization that is responsible for cataloguing project management best practices, the lessons gleaned from previous projects conducted by the firm, best practices developed by other project management professionals, and keeping the arsenal of tools useful in managing projects of many kinds. The PMO also provides in-house consulting services to managers who are in need of project management expertise, and may supply support services such as scheduling, printing, etc. Project Management Offices help reduce the costs and improve the success rates of projects overall.
Most projects are not completed successfully. That is, they are closed without fulfilling the expectations of stakeholders as set out at the very beginning of a project. In large companies, only 9% of projects succeed; in medium sized companies, 16%; and in small companies 28% of projects succeed. Overall, management consulting firm KPMG finds that 69% of project failures are due to improper implementation of project management methodologies. It is this cause of failure that a PMO seeks to cure.
By standardizing the methodologies used in project management throughout a company, the PMO ensures that best practices are followed. The PMO not only mines the lessons a company learns from its own projects, but also reaches out into the project management professional community to take advantage of what others have learned. The Project Management Institute's PMBOK (Project Management Body Of Knowledge) is a key resource to which PMOs turn.
Standardization also saves money. If every project uses Microsoft Project software, for instance, the company is likely to save money by buying larger numbers of license keys. Having a short list of suppliers for standard components of project management, such as communications tools, Web-based project management software, and so on, also enables a company to earn volume discounts from its favored vendors.
The Project Management Office is often staffed with at least one certified Project Management Professional (PMP), whose full-time career is project management. The PMP is the "go-to" person for managers throughout the company when they need project management expertise.