Regardless if your PMO management is starting out or has been around the industry, you need to keep an eye on the following challenges that will come your way and for your PMO management. Remember that your PMO might get caught up in the void of irrelevancy or if the following goals are not managed properly.

Below are the following PMO management challenges and what you can do to prepare for them

The Responsibilities of Additional Tasks

Day 1 of PMO management starts with taking responsibility for other tasks; occurrences like this often happen where these tasks have nowhere to go or in this case, no division in an organization takes them. But it doesn’t mean that PMO management is the ultimate solution. This is why you need to start realigning your goals and activities and work out the following gaps from there.

In order to stay relevant, your PMO management has to implement regular reviews to assess if the following mandate reflects the business or company goals. You need to act upon on this, especially by making the necessary changes to tasks and refraining from working on activities that no longer hold value.

The Lack of Staff and Skills

Resource management is the top challenge a PMO management faces, especially in allocating resources to projects and within the spectrum of PMO itself. Another challenge the PMO management needs to deal with is the number of staff doing various responsibilities. It’s fine,but not ona long-term basis since it will be hard to set each onebar high in terms of skill and can also create pressure on smaller groups.

Look atthe various skills in your PMO management and compare them to what your organization needs. That way you will be able to determine the requirements for training or hiring; then provide the necessary training to improve or develop those skill sets.

Marketing the Services

Challenged values have been common in the PMO management world due to senior managers lack of perceived value. It’s the job of the PMO to make the company aware of its function in the hierarchy.

The first step to do this is to make senior managers aware what exactly the PMO management does and how they’re connected to the strategic goals.

The Emergence and Rise of Agile

The lack of skills in working under Agile has also been part of the challenge that PMO management is trying to deal with. A number of PMO management teams are anxious that they don’t have enough skills or none at all to work under this methodology.

Ensure that your PMO is up to date by training teams and update processes in order to align the new way of working. Agile requires different processes and skills, so make sure that everyone in the team has the right skills that align with this method.

Growing Your PMO Management

As much there is the difference in PMO management the goal is pretty clear: make managing business easier for a less difficult project, portfolio, and program management. This will also manifest when you are regularly facing various PMO management challenges and finding the best ways of dealing with them.

The post How to Face the PMO Management Challenges ? appeared first on Management Square.

Here are other common reasons why PMO failure is still prominent in the industry today and what you can do to prevent it from happening to your own PMO.

PMO Failures

Low-Value Activities

One of the most common causes of PMO failure is certain activities are not given enough value. And when they do, it’s perceived as low or less of importance.

The trend two years back was that activities such as reporting and managing document templates are considered low value–something that the higher-ups are guilty of doing. This is because the PMO as a whole tends to focus more on administrative tasks.

In other words, your PMO isn’t delivering the right value with these tasks alone.

How to Prevent this PMO failure from Happening to You: Balance. That’s all there is to it. There should be a balance when it comes to maintaining documents and reports. However your PMO should focus more on tasks that the senior managers think would bring value to the entire work system.

No Constant Assessment

Not having constant evaluation can actually affect your PMO in more ways than one. Tracking your PMO’s progress is crucial–this will help you assess what areas need to be improved and what are resources you need to add to your roster. This is why PMO failure manifests within your work system because the managers and team tend to stop evaluating when they think they’re on the right track.

How to Prevent this PMO failure from Happening to You: Don’t stop. Plan a constant assessment as part of your yearly PMO cycle.

Some of the way to do this:

• Asking a project owner for feedback
• Asking stakeholders for feedback
• Getting feedback from clients

The key here is to get as much feedback from the different spectrum and not just within the project alone. You need to get the insight from someone outside. Create a sort of checklist or scorecard so you can see your progress or if you’re making one at all.

A PMO that Doesn’t Align with Strategies

Another struggle to get out of the PMO failure is the difficulty aligning their PMO with strategies. The PMO tends to be out of the loop regarding strategies,thus missing the entire point of why they’re here in the first place.

Below are the actorsthat PMO should work on in their field.

• Supporting a career path for project management
• Supporting a cross-functional work
• Establishing communities that share each other’s knowledge
• Capacity planning
• Decision making within the project-level activities
• Resource management and project prioritization
• Adapting the PMO to meet the business needs

How to Prevent this PMO failure from Happening to You: Understand the strategy first in order to have a successful alignment. Doing so will give you a clear pathway to fulfilling what the business actually needs.

Talk to your senior managers regarding this so you are sure that you’re aligning your PMO exactly where it’s supposed to be.

Extending Your PMO’s Lifeline

By taking these PMO failures into account, you have more chance to actually extend the life of your PMO. And even if it’s going to be short-lived as it was mentioned above, you’ll get to manage it in a way that activities are valued and resources are not wasted.

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Below are the following PMO trends to watch out for.

PMO Trends: 

PMO Trend 1: The ‘Accidental Project Managers’

It’s not surprising that more and more people involved in a certain project get the ‘accidental project manager’ factor within a day. This means that people who have gone in this situation often end up leading a project without formal training or tools, as well as assistance from a corporate PMO.

This PMO trend has sprouted to large-scale projects where individuals are needed on certain divisions or tasks—such as who will become responsible with reporting or who would be assisting with the processes. At this rate, PMOs need to take more resources outside the spectrum.

PMO Trend 2: Agile Management

Another PMO trend in the line is the agile methodology that is a challenge for most PMOs. This is because it’s outside the comfort zone of a PMO to be workingwith such method.

Agile doesn’t have clear-cut benefits and can often change without warning; this, in turn, makes project prioritization difficult on the PMOs part. It also happens to fall outside the normal governance PMOs often get used to.

PMO Trend 3: Paving Career Paths

Besides the normal responsibilities such as governance and decision-making, PMOs also hold the duty of defining career paths for project managers. This PMO trend shows that it’s less costly to manage one’s career paths than letting go of qualified and skilled team members or managers.

More trainingfor complex projects will help retain your resources since these factors will help boost one’s career without sacrificing your resources.

PMO Trend 4: Strategy Delivery

Executing strategy still seems to be a struggle for most companies. This growing PMO trend has become hard work in terms of strategy implementation. That is why PMOs need to be enablers of these strategies in order to effectively bring them into reality. The first step in this area is to be able to identify the projects that best align the strategies and objectives.

PMO Trend 5: Portfolio Management

PMOs have become good in managing programs and projects. However,we are yet to see how such changes affect globally along with improving the way companies manage and acknowledge portfolios. Remember that as the PMO mature so is the need for change.

The PMO trend showcases the importance of such and how it adds value to a business. That being said, a PMO must be led by a credible and trusted senior manager along with his or her team and a good track record.

The Future of PMO

The industry has yet to see more PMO trends popping up in the market in the following year or so. There’s also the concern of retaining staff and filling the gap by adding more resources qualified to get the job done. Is your PMO mature enough to take on the challenge?

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The one main issue here once a project finishes, governance starts to slip away into the cracks. Tracking, reporting, and managing seem to go disappear as well, there’s no PMO involved, and no meetings to discuss oversights and results.

Managing benefits and their realization are handed down to the people who have adopted the project deliverables. However, it is not their job to track and report results; it’s a key area where the PMO added value and give quality data in regards to the project initiatives.

Managing Benefits Approach

Before you delve managing benefits and realizing them under the flagship of PMO, it’s essential to understandwhat the organization wants in terms of benefits tracking.

Benefits realization is often found in strategic and enterprise-level PMOs seeing that tasks such as tracking and reporting are often connected to portfolio management. If your business doesn’t still have a PMO for portfolio management, you might want to adapt your approach a little bit; ensure that you bounce this back to the senior management so that they have a clear view of the possible benefits in the project lifecycle.

Even if you don’t have a mature PMO, you can still incorporate an approach that can help you in managing benefits. Start this by creating a culture where project managers can see the deliverables used in an actual situation. The organization will find it easier to acquire benefits if the project has the user and end results in mind.

System Set Up

Your benefits system must have come out with data that will help managers make decisions, as reflected in the other systems of PMO.

Tracking benefits should include an immediate flagging of issues within a project. This will give managers ample time to find solutions and deal the problem head-on. But managing benefits and tracking them go a long way. Other than the usual reporting and documenting, there is a need to pull some more weight to be able to effectively manage your resources.

Results Toward the Long Haul

Projects take time to produce so you can’t expect that managing benefits can be shifted overnight. It’s a big step moving to PMO processes and tools that will simplify complex reports.

Start taking baby steps at this point such as:

• Updating your project template to include a detailed benefits data
• Giving balances during the project lifecycle to evaluate whetherthe project is on the right track in order to acquire the stated benefits
• Creating a culture where the organization can benefit from rather than just accomplishing tasks onthe list

These activities will take a long time. Remember that managing benefits is a long-term approach and something that you’re willing to work over time. You might even get some extra help seeing that you don’t have enough expertise and skills in it.

Raising Up Your Benefits

The role of a mature PMO is to aim for managing benefits. If your PMO is not mature enough, you might consider taking a first few steps before delving into managing benefits. And when the time comes, you might consider raising up the bar for your team and processes for you to be able to support PMO benefits management. Prepare your plan of action, software, processes, resources, and a vision supported by the executives.

It always starts small and builds to something bigger and greater.

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In order for PMO to move up the business, one must understand its benefit and primary functions. A PMO manager role won’t just grow without delving into its inner core. This is imperative for a company to move towards its objectives.

Executives should understand that the PMO manager roles might vary based on the company, but share common factors such as:

• Consistent operation and delivery
• Metrics backed by factual sources and data and
• C-suite strategy and a strong connection between projects

Changes in the Overall PMO Management

It’s not simple setting up a PMO, let alone assign a manager that can run the show. The changes involved more requirements as well as function as the PMO matures. This also applies to a PMO manager role.

Leading a PMO is more than just managing project managers and portfolio—it’s an ever-changing of responsibilities that a person in charge must be able to keep up. The leaders need to step up their game as the PMO environment, activities, and functions change to further align with the firm’s objectives.

The Skills Involved

Strong leadership is one of the attributes needed in a PMO manager role. This means that being a strong leader includes keeping an eye on projects and performance coupled with specific decision-making skills that can produce results at the end of the day. However, it will take a couple of months and even a year or two to have the skills and direction to manifest into one complete portfolio.

Besides the given strong leadership factor, what exactly else are these skills that align the PMO manager roles? First one is the ability to spot value from a mile away. One of the PMO manager’s role is to see the overall benefit of the project even before the planning stage. He or she should also come up with questions on how these benefits will be realized. This will also help the team members and managers determine the tasks that need to be prioritized and set a default standard or culture in terms of project delivery.

Another skill to take into account is being aware and assertive. Strategic awareness is important in being a PMO manager and you can do this by working closely with senior executives or directors. A mature PMO, after all, needs a definitive strategy to point the organization in the right direction. There’s also the case of giving insights on a manager’s ideas; it’s difficult to tell the manager outright that some of his or her ideas are not practical without hurting his or her ego. What’s more, the concern of members who hardly contribute on the project. Developing emotional intelligence is needed at this area in order to deal with this situation.

Lastly, a good PMO manager needs to be credible in both personal and business level. This adds value to the organization as a whole. Without this skill, it will be hard for the team and company to implement PMO and even adjust to the major changes.

The PMO Manager Role: Change is Good

The success of a PMO lies on its ability to accept and adjust to the changes that greatly reflect the needs of the organization. In sum, let us accept as the evolution that our PMO is experiencing. This factor means more room for opportunities to develop new skills, roles, and practices. The overall PMO leadership is constantly changing and we should learn to embrace it from here on.  These PMO manager roles will soon evolved, paving the way to more opportunities to bring projects and programs into succession.

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PMO Goals

The Strategic PMO Approach

One of the PMO goals that are in the rage at the industry today is pushing PMO to its full potential. One of the issues of some organizations is that they don’t push PMO hard enough and instead end up burying it underneath the company’s hierarchy and infrastructure.

In order make this happen, your PMO goals must contain strategies that align the organization, accompanied by authority and governance. The next step is to change PMO titles and roles; it should not be centralized in one area alone—it needs to govern more than just project management reports, but authority in terms of task designation as well.

The PMO’s visibility should also be modified in the organization so that they are able to spur changes faster and increase return on investment (ROI). These PMO roles must be taken into consideration since they have a huge impact on how an organization runs.

Some organizations already call their PMO Enterprise Program Management Office (EPMO), though there are possible roles and titles that will fit well on the type of organization a PMO is placed. These changes would only work if the staff team should also have the change in terms of how they operate. This factor should also fall under the spectrum of the goals of the PMO. However, having an expert around isn’t enough to fill these PMO goals—there is a need to add people in the roster and an individual who has the necessary skills, experience, and knowledge to lead an organization.

Elevating PMO Goals with Enhanced Staff Development

For the most part, another factor within the PMO goals are the team members and line managers. To improve their productivity, skills, and performance in the workplace, a training should be provided. Of course, there is a matter of funding such idea, but there’s also the concern for software tools to make tasks streamlined. The question of cost also lies in managing this software so a budget should also be put in order.

You can also provide videos or seminars for staff for a more engaging learning session. This will help them learn certain aspects, roles, and responsibilities by themselves and in their own way. Organizations keep reports during this time to track the progress of the staff members based on the training they have taken. Besides the individual training approach towards skill development and improvement is collaboration. This will greatly show the members’ capabilities and even raised the level of their talents and skills. Set a system as part of your PMO goals, accompanied with interactive content that everyone will love to be part of.

These PMO goals might be off to a rough start, but this is just natural. You will meet challenges along the way, but keep in mind that you will reap rewards from it such as positive impact on your organization and staff. Boost your leadership skills and see the growth from there.

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Having a new PMO means you are paving the way towards new changes, as well as making a difference. Such difference should not only be big but positive as well. No one wants to invest in something that doesn’t promise assurance and contribution to the overall infrastructure and hierarchy of the organization.

Introduction New PMO :

Getting a new PMO doesn’t have to be a fast-paced process. You are not running in a race, so it is expected that this will be a process for anyone in the organization to take slow. Some will take some getting used to. With that, below are four steps in ensuring that you have a great start with your brand new PMO.

Start Slow

“Slowly but surely” isn’t coined out of nothing. Gradually implementing the change can ease up anyone into accepting it. A low-key launching or announcement sure beats the unnecessary grand opening. Start with introducing the purpose of the new PMO and the core services in store.

Start with the basic overview and then add functions. Don’t make a sudden turn of offerings that will leave someone threatened of the change. Going slowly makes managing aspects easy as well. It will also help you to detect problems and formulate a solution as soon as possible. A slow approach means you can clearly see possible issues and risks that will pop up during this transition.

Acquire Buy-In

Another purpose of a new PMO is the opportunity to have a talk with your main stakeholders. These interactions will help you establish engagement as well as a broad network. In order to make that happen, initiate chats and informal discussions not necessarily inclined on the main discussion you usually have about the organization, but a small talk that can root into more opportunities to make the new PMO successful.

If you are still targeting someone as candidates for stakeholders, create a plan to communicate with influential people in the industry who can make or break your PMO. You can sell them the benefits of PMO, ask for their advice or recommendation, and from there, try to work on that based on their suggestions. But what if some stakeholders negatively think of your new PMO? Make an effort to convince them out from the mindset and try to work with them to build that rapport that your new PMO is, indeed, a new pathway towards a positive change.

Provide Easy to Understand Processes

You may get carried away in introducing your new PMO to everyone so you end up providing a process that will leave anyone dumbfounded or just downright confused. Setting up a structure should be put into priority because this new PMO of yours is going to be used by project management teams—and if they don’t know what process they’re using, they also don’t know what they’re supposed to be doing.

Since the changes have been hard enough to others already, make it a point to provide an easy approach to the process that anyone can follow. Communication should be two-way and your process should be specific, concise, and consistent. Don’t forget to do the needed changes during this period.

Show Benefits as Soon as Possible

Ensure that the new PMO has evidence of the following changes such as better transparency and an increased governance. That doesn’t mean that benefits are quickly manifested. Some PMOs such as the Earned Value Management takes several months to obtain data at a corporate level. But you need to showcase the following benefits within weeks or months of implementing your new PMO.

On the other hand, setting up your new PMO also means making an effort to show a return on investment. This can include templates, software, tools, and documentation to show increased maturity on your PMO and project as a whole.

Slow Changes, More Improvements

These changes might start out slow, but once you’re seeing improvements in different aspects of your organization, you will now understand that taking steps is the best and smart way to go.

You can also read the PMO Value Ring Methodology.

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The need for PMO metrics has been a debate among leaders, movers and shakers of the project management industry. Project Management Office is indeed important; governance and transparency have increased and staff members have applied their learned skills taken from numerous training and mentorship. However, it is still considered a hot topic of what PMO metrics are exactly capable of. Sure, they hold such importance but to what extent?

Focus on What Your PMO Metrics Do

There is no such thing as one size fits all PMO metric. At this rate, PMO metrics template don’t exist and it all boils down to what type of project infrastructure an organization has. Each PMO is unique. An IT company might have a complex PMO, but don’t expect it to be the same as an organization that deals with security tools. A boilerplate PMO dashboard might come in handy, but that won’t give you the focus you are looking for in your PMO. But it can be your point of origin that will drive you towards PMO metrics that will suit your exact needs.

What does your PMO actually need? Do you need improvement in reporting or documenting? Project tracking? What are your concentrations? Ruminating on these questions will help you see through the dark and come up with factors that will help you find the right PMO metrics for your project and company. Remember that PMO is distinct in its own way. You might be providing coaching or training to team members so you use particular PMO metrics that are parallel to those aspects, but that won’t work for strategic portfolio management.

Enhance Decision Making

Your PMO metrics should also help executives and line managers make decisions. With that, it should be easy to comprehend, follow, and utilized. Your metrics should also show the key areas that you need keep track of such as budget and strategic planning activities. Don’t forget that it has to show the possible issues that will crop up so you can formulate a viable solution for it. As your PMO matures, you need to assess which measures are now relevant to your decision-makers.

Automate as Much as You Can

Take your PMP metrics to their full advantage by automating data as much as you can. Prepping up your PMO metrics with information can be time-consuming but it’s all worth it in the long run such as saving you precious time in the future.

Engaging the Right People

Think the people who will receive the data and the results. Talk to your stakeholders and ask them what type of metric they want to see and use at this point. Some stakeholders already have a clear idea in their heads on what PMO metrics they want to manifest. To ensure that, you need to engage them in a discussion to show that you are dedicated to implementing efficient PMO metrics that will give a great impact on the project.

Every PMO is Unique

Again, don’t compare other PMOs you have encountered in the past. It has various needs for a different kind of organization. It’s crucial to evaluate what your PMO can provide and make sure you are aware of how it is tracked. Not to mention that the following aspects it should support.

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Digital PMO: An Overview

From the word ‘digital’ alone, we already have an idea that it has something to do with the internet, going mobile or relying on online software tools to get the job done. In the case of digital PMO, it is to relay real-time information to team members to any device, at any time.

The main advantage of digital PMO is that managers are able to acquire information easily and make decisions at any given time. What’s more, it makes procedures faster, as well as approvals and authorizations that need to be made in a project. There’s no need to wait around a day or even a week for reports considering that they are relayed during the task. It makes this efficient because the managers in charge can check for issues and come up with an immediate solution.

Another benefit of digital PMO is there are less frequent meetings. That is not to say that meetings, in general, are unnecessary and a waste of time, but they do eat some precious time. At this rate, meetings should be done when there are some crucial points to be made before starting the project or a recap of this week’s progress. Digital PMO reduces cost as well because everything—from spreadsheets to reports are merged into one online tool where certain people have access to it. Lastly, transparency is increased which means more information will be provided among teams and in turn increase productivity and make tasks more efficient.

Is the Change Worth It?

Think about how digital PMO impacts your workplace, project, and team as a whole. Going digital doesn’t mean that your PMO will lose its ability to tackle with physical resources. It’s still up to the organization if they want a full-blown digital PMO and if that will be the case, you need to take cost, tools to use, storage space, and available network into account. Building a digital PMO is the first step and everyone must be ready for that from beginning to end.

Take note that there will be setbacks along the way so ensure that the resources are compatible such as instant messaging, project management software tools, templates, and other online applications.

It’s safe to say that all areas of businesses and industries are already on their way to embracing these digital changes and PMO is no exception. You cannot expect that everyone can easily adjust to digital PMO and other changes, so hands-on practice should be implemented.

It’s also crucial to integrate your system to these changes for a streamlined approach. Start with small steps and don’t force your team members to immediately digest the aspects of a certain tool or approach. While you are at it, take note of your priorities and don’t get lost in your organization’s objective. At the end of the day, embracing digital PMO doesn’t necessarily mean building it from scratch. You can also make do with what you already have. Take a good look around and look for practices and tools that you can use to skyrocket your PMO into the digital spectrum.

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It is proven that when training is brought to one’s task, Project Management Office (PMO) becomes more effective. Learning a significant element in the training is essential for a vital PMO and this increases its effectivity. On the other hand, it is the PMO’s job to provide these training courses and coordinate with the respective offices.

The Matter of Learning Transfer

It’s no surprise that people have a hard time implementing what they learn from the training to their task at work. Even more so, they just forgot them altogether the minute the training is finished. Some are able to use their new skills, but only for a short span of time.

This ‘gap’ is more common on soft training skills. Harder skills, such as utilizing project management software, are more practiced in their field. There are certain skills that won’t cling for a long time. On the other hand, when you have a skill in collaborating tools to get data on said tool, this will likely be a part of your forte.

How to Get that Learning Moving

A course doesn’t ensure that an individual has the entire grasp of what it contains. The aspects within a certain course will end up useless if one doesn’t know how to work it to his or her advantage. There are many ways that PMO and project managers can instill that learning to their staff.

Before the course or training, set objectives on what everyone should learn from the session. Set expectations as well and prepare hands-on training containing real-life situations with a realistic approach and result. Create an exercise every training so that the following attendees can have the full understanding of what they’re getting into. Putting them in a particular situation will stimulate their critical thinking skills, creativity, and initiative.

The PMO can also give coaching sessions as part of the training exercises. This will serve as mentoring, as well as training on new skills that will be useful for their upcoming tasks. Newly trained employees can be put on certain areas as part of their evaluation process, but you need to coordinate with the line managers before doing this so that both of you can come up with an efficient method for the following skill sets.

These sessions don’t have to be done every day but rather set aside a schedule for weekly training that includes task recap, skill assessment, and what the employees have learned on their last course. This is also a great platform for them to ask questions and clarify certain aspects of their training.

The Impact of Training on Your Project Team

Pre and post-training surveys are the most common tool to measure how training or courses impact your project teams—how much they have learned or areas they need to improve on. While you are at it, you can measure each of the individual’s project data before and after the training. Even with all the million tools in the world, measuring the training impact is deemed difficult, so you need to think hard for the right method for your PMO.

Getting information and measuring the results of project team training is crucial since it also impacts the business. This concept works on all angles where project managers will become more aware of the areas they need to improve on and PMOs will know the inner workings of a particular job. The following training sessions will also help everyone in the hierarchy to develop a new technique to make them more effective in their field.

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