ESI International, the professional development group for project management, recently released the results of a new survey focused on the value of PMOs within organisations across the globe. Entitled The Global State of the PMO: Its Value, Effectiveness and Role as the Hub of Training, the resulting report focused on the question of value gained from a PMO; how effective PMOs actually are in organisations and challenged the perceptions of the PMO as a centre of excellence which amongst other things is responsible for the training and development of project management across an organisation or department.
Taken from the press release;
“Results of a new global study reveal that many organisations do not operate their Project/Programme Management Office (PMO) as effectively as they could. Of the 82 percent of organisations worldwide that reported having a PMO, more than half do not even measure PMO effectiveness. Additionally, the survey results show that as PMOs have matured, organisations are increasingly questioning their value, ability to measure effectiveness and their role in growing PM capabilities through effective training.”
The survey size is impressive; “more than 3,700 survey respondents included project/programme managers and directors, heads of PMO, senior executives and other project-related staff both inside and outside the PMO from a wide range of industries in North and South America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa (EMEA) and the Asia Pacific (APAC) regions”
Key findings from the report includes;
- The discussion about PMO maturity has been overtaken by the discussion about PMO value, with 60 percent of respondents claiming their PMO’s value has been questioned.
- Seventy-six percent of non-PMO staff say their organisation either does not measure or they do not know whether it measures PMO effectiveness. In fact, 52 percent do not measure PMO effectiveness at all.
- Forty percent of respondents say their PMO is operating to a fair or poor extent.
- The PMO is a hub of project management training for some, but its positive influence on career progression is questionable. The PMO is strongest in conveying methodologies and other PM ‘hard’ skills (72 percent agree) and weakest in reviewing the effectiveness of training and its impact on project and programme performance (only 35 percent agree).
- The measurement of training impact is widely neglected in North America and EMEA, with 28 percent and 25 percent of PMO staff respectively reporting they do not measure training impact at all. It is more common in the APAC region, with only 18 percent who report they do not measure training impact.
- Many PMOs are not operating at a strategic level with only 20 percent of respondents reporting they engage in portfolio management, and 15 percent reporting that they track return on investment and benefits realisation.
The UK View
Zooming into the UK perspective and as stated above the cut of data looks at results from people from both inside the PMO (PMO manager, Head of PMO etc) and those executives outside the PMO (the senior management in 
the business, PMs etc). 73% of non PMO staff claimed the PMOs involvement or existence improved the effectiveness and availability of training yet only 22% of the same group said the PMO properly assesses their training needs and provides relevant training. So the PMO models in the survey definitely have the remit of being the custodial of project management training yet the assessment of needs and the ultimate provision of the right training is not being done in the majority of cases.
The indications for the UK is that the majority of PMOs take a more “prescriptive, less diagnostic approach” that is “less effective in addressing actual skills and knowledge gaps”. In fact 78% of training (in the non PMO staff view) from the PMO centres around methodolgy and tools; 62% hard skills (i.e., planning, risk etc) and 53% soft skills. The outcome from the report states that “UK based PMOs offer more effective learning and development options than the global average, however they fall short in promoting the importance of project management across the organisation”. Just 36% of non PMO staff felt that the PMO involvement’s in career development and training made it easier to help them plan their own career development.
A quarter of the PMOs which provide the training custodial role also have work to do – measuring the impact of the project management training that they provide. Without the measurement, there is a lack of proof about the effectiveness of this particular role the PMO provides, which brings us back to one of the report highlights; 60 percent of respondents claiming their PMO’s value has been questioned. Of the PMOs that do measure effectiveness the majority do so through feedback forms (59%) which seems very simplistic whilst 35% measure by looking at “direct implementation on-the-job skills”. I certainly would be interested to see how the PMO effectively measures this.
Finally, how do PMOs in the UK measure effectiveness? 74% look at on-time and on budget project delivery; 67% on project success rates and 57% on customer satisfaction. My question would be; how can these measures be directly attributable to the PMO?
To take a look at the ESI Global State of the PMO: Its Value, Effectiveness and Role as the Hub of Training report download here (pdf) or visit the website for more information
