In this second part of the review, the functions and services of the PMO are covered. The functions and services have been broken down into the three functional areas of strategic planning, delivery support and the centre of excellence, for example in delivery support there are things like risk, issue and change management (which would include creating and maintaining the logs). In the CoE function there are services such as process creation and maintaining the standards.
The function and services of the PMO will of course depend on each individual organisation’s requirements and for some of the services they exist at different levels of the PMO i.e., portfolio planning, programme planning and project planning. The chapter also goes on to cover services at different levels in more details and assurance and governance functions and services.
The Appendix for the functions and services is where all the meaty information is for the PMO professional looking for the details. Taking each function in turn, all the services are laid out with details about what that service is and what the PMO is providing, there’s also a “useful tools/techniques/references” for each corresponding service. To illustrate with an example; “Performance Monitoring” is a service which could be seen at each level of a PMO – strategic / portfolio, a delivery PMO and a CoE. For each level there are details about what the service is;
Strategic/Portfolio – e.g., “Set up and track portfolio metrics”
CoE – e.g., “Manage portfolio / programme or project Performance Improvement Plan template, enabling process and resource”
Delivery support – e.g., “Set up and track programme / project metrics”
The supporting tools and techniques include”performance improvement plans, balanced scorecard etc”
I must say, this is an excellent resource for any PMO professional, in my previous role as a Project Office Manager (over 7 years ago!) for a delivery support PMO, this detailed list of services would have been brilliant to dip into. One of the approaches we used was a menu of services which delivery project managers could request of their PMO and I wonder now if there are some services I didn’t think of or approaches we could have utilised.
The other part of this chapter is the roles and responsibilities of the PMO staff, there are detailed specifications available in the Appendices (a good resource for updating your own job description or using for recruitment purposes – it would be a good source for the HR team too!), titles covered include the “Head of P3O”, Head of PMO”, “Project Specialist” etc. The roles and responsibilities are also covered, for example, taking each function/service in turn and the outlining description i.e., finance, planning, risk etc
The skills and competencies of the PMO staff are obviously what makes a PMO successful (apart from the senior management definitely wanting one in the first place!) and the book talks about the right people being difficult to find ( and yes I would say that is true), that high calibre staff are needed. This is also a difficulty in recruitment and retention of good P3O staff – good high calibre candidates want to work in good high calibre P3Os (or at least in the knowledge that the P3O they’re being drafted in to set up has all the trappings of a potentially good high calibre P3O). Organisations will need to think hard about their offering, their vision for the P3O to be able to attract the right staff in the first place.
There is also mention of the PMO career path and that it is not neccessarily a stepping stone to being a project manager – this is one oximoron I have difficulties with – it’s stated that the Head of P3O or PMOs come from a varied background and would have previous experience of delivery. If that is what makes a Head of P3O successful, how will today’s PMO staff progress up the P3O career path to Head of P3O one day without making that step into delivery project management?
Finally, something I’ve not really seen before, “how big should the PMO be?”. In fact, we had this question at the last PPSOSIG event from a delegate and in this part of the chapter there are three sizing options. The options based on (1) value of programme (2) size of programme (3) by function, give food for thought for any PMO Manager looking at the PMO set up and what’s needed on an ongoing basis (especially when you consider that size, value and functions may flunctuate through the PMOs lifecycle)
Like I said – there’s a lot going on in this chapter that will require a few read throughs and copious notes and probably the chapter and appendices that make it worth buying. I’m also intrigued to see how this would translate to a training course and accreditation.
**If you’re a PMO professional and want to make sure you understand what this P3O guidance is going to mean for you and your organisation – see the PPSOSIG website – the conference on the 18th March 2009 is not to be missed and its great value**
