10 Reasons Why a PMO Is So Important

CONVINCE YOUR DECISION-MAKERS OF THE

BENEFITS OF A PMO
This document will provide you with arguments for a Project
Management Office (PMO). What makes a PMO able to ad-
vance project, portfolio and resource management (PPM)
at your company? You can use the following arguments to
persuade the decision-makers. But this list is not intended
to be exhaustive.
Watch out: There is no such thing as the one PMO! Its tasks
can vary from company to company. There are no universal
standards for PMOs. The significance of the tasks can differ
depending on company and industry. Hence, the order of
the following arguments is of little importance.
1. INCREASING THE LEVEL OF
PROJECT MANAGEMENT MATURITY
A PMO can be the central office for project, program and
portfolio management. Its tasks can include establishing
methods, processes, and in-house standards. The ensuing
higher quality will entail a higher PM maturity level of the
company. Both will result in savings through more efficient
and successful project handling.
Goal and Benefit: Savings through more efficient and
successful project handling.
2. DEFINING INTERNAL STANDARDS
Develop your own internal standards. This can reduce the
overall effort for project, program, portfolio and resource
management. Begin by defining at what point a project
becomes a project. You will avoid misunderstandings. Be-
sides, standards make projects easier to compare, e.g. by
way of standardized project reports.
Goal and Benefit: Fewer misunderstandings between
stakeholders and easier comparability.
(S)PMO, PMO and PO are the 3 main types of a PMO
3. SUPPORT FOR THE DECISION-MAKERS
THROUGH PROJECT PORTFOLIO
The PMO can support the decision-makers in ensuring that
the project portfolio is aligned to corporate strategy. It can
do this by preparing the decision-making basis and the prior-
itization. Good preparation will ease decision-making for the
steering committee and top management. The result will be
purposeful and situation-dependent decisions.
Goal and Benefit: Substantial support in decisions on
the project portfolio.
4. SUPPORT FOR THE PROJECT MANAGERS
A PMO can support project managers in performing
administrative tasks. For example, project controlling or
project staffing. Thus, the PMO is actually the project
managers’ friend. As a result, project managers can look
after more important aspects of the project, which they
cannot delegate.
Goal and Benefit: Relieving the project managers of
administrative tasks.
5. FURTHERING THE COMMUNICATION
This may be one of the most important tasks of the PMO:
Leveling the playing-field for communication in the project
environment. This regards the creation of regular meetings.
And establishing who is to talk to whom. And about what.
The PMO should prepare each of these meetings well to
ensure smooth and efficient running. Afterwards, it should
take care to communicate the decisions to all levels.
Goal and Benefit: Supporting meaningful communi-
cation in the project environment.
7. ADVANCING PROJECT MANAGEMENT CULTURE
A project management culture at the company can be
crucial to project success. It helps stakeholders to com-
monly understand and live the individual processes and
methods of the project environment. The PMO can be the
central office introducing such a culture to the company,
harmonizing and advancing it.
Goal and Benefit: A consistent PM culture at the
company smoothes the processes.
8. LEARNING FROM EXPERIENCE
It is possible to learn from the successes and mistakes of
the past. A knowledge base containing all experiences can
help. Additionally, certain stakeholders can track and later
discuss the projects success or ways to improve as “lessons
learned”. The PMO can be the central office where such
data and project documentation converge. It can make sure
this data is easy to access and reusable.
Goal and Benefit: Future projects benefit from ana-
lyzing past experiences.
6. DEVELOPING THE RESOURCES
The PMO may be in charge of the (strategic) training of the
staff working in project management. This includes organ-
izing, and possibly also performing, training sessions con-
cerning methods and tools. The training ensures a largely
consistent understanding and the necessary skills among
the staff, which advances the PM culture (see next point).
Furthermore, it provides the resources with the necessary
skills for future projects.
Goal and Benefit: Good preparation of staff for pro-
ject environment and tasks.
9. PROVIDING TOOLS AND INFRASTRUCTURE
As a rule, the PMO is responsible for providing the tools
for the project management environment. This is not only
about choosing, purchasing, and maintaining the tools.
The responsibility also extends to training the staff. User
acceptance of the tools plays a vital role. Hence, the PMO
has to take it into account when choosing them.
Goal and Benefit: Suitable PM tools employed prop-
erly will increase project success.
10. INCREASING EFFICIENCY
A PMO can help to keep a project running. It can also
ensure a faster implementation of decisions. This can
also cut costs and raise the quality. Increased process
reliability and project support save time. For instance,
they speed up decisions due to up-to-date and well-pre-
pared data. In dynamic markets, this can be the essential
reason for project success.
Goal and Benefit: The right PMO support results in
more efficient project handling.
OUTLOOK ON THE PMO OF THE FUTURE
The five theses below show how the tasks of the PMO
might change in the future, as does the figure below:
1. The PMO of the future is the central hub of the enter-
prise regarding project management.
2. In the of business hierarchy, the PMO is close to top man-
agement. The focus is on strategic project management.
3. The growing complexity of projects leads to a higher
coordination effort.
4. The PMO of the future conbributes by coordinating
the projects’ resources. Those resources are becoming
more and more international due to globalization.
5. Existing operational support tasks of the PMO decline
with the growing degree of automation. For instance,
project report generation will no longer be a manual task.

The changed tasks of the PMO in the future: grey = present state / red = expected development

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