Seven Tips To Maximize The Performance And Effectiveness Of Your PMO

Here are seven tips for maximizing the performance and effectiveness of your PMO:

1.  Ensure all projects have a Project Dashboard, displaying a comprehensive and standard set of project metrics
-  This standard set should include at least Project Schedule Performance, Project Cost Performance, Client Satisfaction, Team Satisfaction and  Project Resourcing metrics.
-  These metrics should all be in the form of indices, to allow a better and more meaningful comparison between all projects.
-  Every Project Dashboard should be made visible to all (excluding any financial or other confidential information).

2.  Aggregate the above key Project Data and display as a PMO Dashboard
-  Each of the project metrics should be averaged across all projects and the results displayed on a monthly trending chart, to show improvement (or not) in the performance of projects in each area measured.
-  The PMO Dashboard should also be made visible to all.

3.  Ensure your projects are aligned with the strategic goals and objectives of your organization (and that of your clients, if in different organizations)

4.  Foster an organization culture that will facilitate the success of your PMO
-  Foster a supportive, collaborative and co-operative culture with project and PMO executive and client management, project managers and all other key stakeholders, to facilitate the successful achievement of project and PMO goals and objectives.

5.  Focus on project results, not project management methodologies and processes
-  With the project and PMO dashboards in place, and a focus on getting the best performance and results for each project, better decisions are going to be made regarding the appropriate project management methodologies, processes, tools and templates needed to achieve these results.  

6.  Facilitate the successful initiation and support of all projects.
-  Establish a core group of experienced project managers, made available as needed, to ensure the successful initiation of all projects.  (This group can be staffed within the PMO, or borrowed from project teams on a scheduled and prearranged basis, as appropriate).
-  Provide ongoing oversight and support through this group, as needed to maintain project success.

7.  Foster continuous improvement in project performance and results
-  Make the training and development of project managers and their project teams a committed and measurable objective.
-  Ensure skilled resources are provided as and when needed for each project.
-  Synthesize, disseminate and act on Lessons Learned from all projects.

Are there any other tips you would like to add?

If you would like to learn how these and many other useful tips and techniques can be applied to benefit your PMO, contact us to arrange a four hour PMO Workshop that can be held on-site or via our web conferencing facilities. 

Is Your PMO As Great As It Can Be?

Here is one simple way to find out.

Ask all or a sampling of your PMO clients (your project managers,  client and project executive management) to rate how satisfied they are with your PMO, on a scale of 1 to 10.

If the average rating is not 9 or 10, then your PMO is not meeting your clients needs as effectively as it might.



We can help you in assessing and improving your PMO with a PMO Health Check assessment.

We work with you to assess the health of your PMO against over twenty seven PMO best practices covering the following seven key areas:
-  PMO Governance
-  Portfolio Management
-  Project Management Methodologies and Training
-  Project Performance Reporting
-  Project Initiation
-  Project Resourcing
-  Project Health Checks and Audits

For each best practice we can provide you, where needed, with the appropriate tools, templates and methodologies to raise the performance of your PMO and make it great.

And of course, if you do not yet have a PMO, we can help you build a great PMO, in as little as ten weeks.

Contact tony.crawford@alphapm.com or call us at 352-321-7845 to arrange a PMO Health Check for your PMO.  We can conduct the PMO Health Check remotely via our web conferencing and collaboration software, or on-site, as you prefer.  An investment of only a few hours will pay very high dividends!