If your organization doesn\'t have a PMO or is planning to create a PMO I hope this document can help you understand the structures of each PMO office. Many organization have PMO but are not sure how to align it with their current business.

1. Approach to align Project Management Office
With
Your Organization

2. Project Management Office
• Abstract
• Introduction
• PMO Structure
• Approach to Project Management within PMO
o Project Scope
o Project Communication Plan
o Project Roles and Responsibility
o Project Resource Management
o Project Deliverables
o Project Performance Measures
o Project Milestones
o Project Risks
o Project Change Control Process
• Continuous Improvement
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3. Project Management Office
Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to understand how to align the PMO with the strategic business
objectives of Your Organization. The PMO will improve the throughput of business systems
projects, lower costs, and improve resource utilization.
The PMO is the center of excellence for project management by providing project support
services, and not overhead. It will increase visibility of the quality project management skills
that Your Organization team will provide.
The main tasks of the PMO and the PM in preparation for and during an engagement are:
• Project Communication
• Project Planning
• Project Scheduling
• Risk Analysis
• Project Tracking/Measurement
• Implementation/Release
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4. Project M
Management O
Office
Introduc
ction
This pape is about my expectatio and provides inputs f an effecti PMO ma
er m on for ive ainly around
d
areas suc as intake, structure, re
ch elease, and re
esource man
nagement.
I persona have trie to apply a far as my i
ally ed as input both m personal e
my experience a doing
and
research by reading a wide variet of documents and arti
ty icles on this subject. Alth
hough the
majoritie have a com
es mmon theme one can not compare ap and ora
e pple anges and mu look at th
ust he
whole thi with an open mind a flexibilit
ing o and ty.
For a PM office to be successfu it must be based on ce
MO ul e ertain govern
nance and ap
pply a
standardi
ized rules an methodolo
nd ogies across board. You can’t have a PMO and ooperate in a non-
standardi
ized environnment.
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5. Project Management Office
Architecture
One of the main objectives of the structure is to reduce uncertainty and confusion that typically
occurs for project management teams. The structure defines the relationships among members of
the project management and the relationships with the external environment. The structure
defines the authority by means of a graphical illustration called an organization chart.
There three forms of PMO Architectures that are currently handled by most organizations.
a. Supportive
Common
Hands off approach
Considerable authority to its project managers to deliver projects within estimates
No control over, or guidance offered to the project leaders
Support is provided through ongoing training, coaching, administrative
requirements, and performance reporting
b. Controlling PMO
Disciplined
Controlling services include: Periodic reviews, project audits, performance
assessments, and corrective action.
PMO has direct influence over the projects that includes risk management, quality
standards enforcement, and communications channels.
Success is determined by cost containment and adherence to task completion
c. Directive PMO
PM report directly to the PM Director
Committed to important projects
Provides the PMO direct responsibility for project outcome
Allowing direct control over project resources to the Project management team
Enhance the probability of success in project deliverables
It can hinder creativity and flexibility in the process
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6. Project Management Office
Your Organization
PMO Architecture
The Directive PMO architecture is what I think is suitable for any team that wants to use a PMO
style project management. It is a hybrid of:
Support PMO – to support PM within Your Organization to help them become
more successful through training, mentoring, administration, and reporting
Controlling PMO – to provide project reviews, audits, assessments, and
governance and to enforce standards, implement processes and manage overall
risk.
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7. Project Management Office
Approach to Project Management within PMO
The project management team must take standardized approach to managing a project within a PMO.
That requires a clear communication plan and a message to the project managers and stakeholders
about the expectations and goals and how one can measure those expectations and how that is aligned
with the organizations’ overall mission statement and strategy.
One suggestion is to apply the Project Management methodologies and framework identified by PMI in
their PMBOK and one can customize it in order to align with the overall goals and vision of the
organization as a whole
Project Scope
The project management team can act as an operational management. In an environment when
individuals and groups are interdependent and work together in order to achieve the common
objectives.
Therefore; the project management team in its operational management role can help to integrate the
work of individuals and groups so that it contributes to the organizations effort.
Project Communication Plan
This is an important document that allows underlining the expectations as well as the roles of members
and stakeholders play in the project. It underlines how meeting are carried out, how often, what
documents are needed and what deliverables needed to be produced.
Project Roles and Responsibilities
Project Sponsor
The project sponsor for each project needs to be identified. The Project Sponsor is
responsible for providing support to individual project managers.
• Secure resources as required for each project and layout the expectations with team
leaders from each group.
• Resolving internal conflicts and identifying major issues that can have detrimental
effect on the overall projects such as funding etc.
• Approve scope changes
• Signing off on deliverables
• Approve to proceed to the next project phase.
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8. Project Management Office
Project Manager
The Project Manager is accountable for:
• Create and carry out the project charter and project management plan
• Coordinate major issues, risks and policy conflicts with the Project Sponsor
• Report and deliver project status/progress in meetings with stakeholders and Sponsor
• Coordinate the allocation of project team resources to identified tasks
• Manage the activities of the project and ensure that the project is on schedule and on
budget
• Coordinate the scheduling of meetings/interviews in accordance with the project plan
• The overall completion of the project
Project Team
Role Responsibility Name
Secure Resources
Communicate Expectations
Project Sponsor
Sign off on Deliverables and Change
Requests
Develop Project charter and obtain sign-
offs
Project Manager
Manage the over all project and identify
risks and marks milestones
To assist with the development of the
Development Member(s) required product as outlined in SDS as
well as FRD
To review and provide feedback on the
QA Member
quality of the product
Other Stakeholders
The following stakeholders will be affected by your projects and have vested interest in its
success:
• All Your Organization and employees and external customers will be affected by this
project.
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9. Project Management Office
Client(s)
The following client(s) will benefit from the deliverables produced by this project:
Project Resource Management
The resources of the project must be carefully allocated. If crashing or fast track needed based on critical
path of the project then it must be carefully discussed with the project sponsor and the message
conveyed to the stakeholders.
The resources must be measured at all phases of the project and reports generated that will provide
adequate information on the status of the project given the resources.
Project Approach
A phased implementation approach will be used
Project Deliverables
• Project Management Methodology, Processes, Best Practices, and Tools
The methodology will be based on the Project Management Institute (PMI) PMBOK (Project
Management Book of Knowledge). The methodology will describe the steps that must be done
from start to finish during the project life cycle. It can provide help to a project manager by
steering projects into the right direction.
The project management team can create the templates, and tools to be used and come to
agreement on methodologies and standards.
The team can utilize document management systems, such as SharePoint or Lotus or the PPM
or the Hyper office products.
The PMO will find an acceptable method of tracking actual. Resource tracking will facilitate
resource planning. Project managers will baseline projects and report on variances. By using
tools that more effectively manage resources, the PMO can increase employee satisfaction by
reducing or eliminating the over-allocation of resources.
Deliverables and Tools
o integration, scope, time, cost, quality, human resources, communication, risk, and
procurement
o Issue Tracking
o Change Control and Guidelines
o Cheat Sheet Cards for project management processes, such as the project life cycle, scope
management, project planning.
o WBS
o Logs
o Worksheets
o Checklists
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10. Project M
Management O
Office
• SLA Review Process
w
As a team you need to r
y review and u
understand th SLA requ
he uirements wi the
ith
contractors or consultan working on our proje
nts ects.
Project M
Metrics and Success
o Senior le sponsors
evel ship.
o Improveement program are formal
ms l
o Good me easurement en nables optimiization
o Level of confidence s
f sees organizattion taking on high risk pro
n ojects success
sfully
o Respect and support o projects an project man
of nd nagers
o Not just control orien – multidi
t nted isciplinary an coaching
nd
o Project health visibili and accura
h ity acy
o Standarddized methods processes, and tools
s,
o Knowled managem and shari of project experiences
dge ment ing t
o End to end engageme across proj life cycle
ent ject e
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11. Project M
Management O
Office
Mileston
nes
The f
following list of milestone is for Project Charter d
t es development process
Event Estim
mated Date
Proje Proposal
ect
Busin Requirem Document (BRD)
ness ment t
Func
ctional Require
ement Docume (FRD)
ent
Defin Scope and major Delivera
ne m ables
Meth
hodology, Proc
cesses, Best Pra
actices and Too for Project Closure
ols
Ident Risk
tify
Ident Resources
tify
Cont
tinuous improv
vements
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12. Project Management Office
Risks
A risk management plan is recommended for all projects and is recommended to be implemented
from the planning stage to the end.
Impact Probability
Risk Response
(L-M-H) (L-M-H)
Funding constraints could limit ability Implementation time line may
to complete objectives along the need to be adjusted.
timeline projected or desired.
PMO Personnel limitations may limit A availability list may need to be
ability to support total Your reviewed and adjusted to add
Organization project workload. additional support.
Continuous improvement Methods and Methodologies
By implementing some of the Six Sigma methodologies: FMEA and Pareto Charts
FMEA
A failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA), is a procedure in product development and operations
management for analysis of potential failure modes within a system for classification by the severity and
likelihood of the failures. A successful FMEA activity helps a team to identify potential failure modes
based on past experience with similar products or processes, enabling the team to design those failures
out of the system with the minimum of effort and resource expenditure, thereby reducing development
time and costs. It is widely used in manufacturing industries in various phases of the product life cycle
and is now increasingly finding use in the service industry. Failure modes are any errors or defects in a
process, design, or item, especially those that affect the customer, and can be potential or actual.
Effects analysis refers to studying the consequences of those failures.
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13. Project M
Management O
Office
harts
Pareto Ch
Descriptio
on
A Pareto c
chart is a bar graph. The le
engths of the b represen frequency o cost (time o money), an are
bars nt or or nd
arranged w longest bars on the left and the sho
with b ortest to the ri
ight. In this w the chart v
way visually depic
cts
which situ
uations are more significannt.
When to U a Pareto Chart
Use C
• When analyzin data about the frequency of problems or causes in a process.
W ng y s n
• When there are many proble or causes and you wan to focus on the most sig
W e ems s nt n gnificant.
• When analyzin broad caus by looking at their spec
W ng ses g cific compone
ents.
• When commun
W nicating with others about your data.
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