Andy Jordan is President of Roffensian Consulting S.A., a Roatan, Honduras-based management consulting firm with a comprehensive project management practice. Andy always appreciates feedback and discussion on the issues raised in his articles and can be reached at andy.jordan@roffensian.com. Andy’s new book Risk Management for Project Driven Organizations is now available.
In October 2017, CIO.com published an article entitled “What is a project management office (PMO) and do you need one?” It was a basic overview of PMOs, a summary of different (simplistic) models and the high-level benefits that a PMO can deliver.
I must admit, I was shocked to see this article. I’m aware that a number of organizations don’t yet have PMOs in place, and some don’t fully understand what the concept is. However, I didn’t think there was such an extensive lack of awareness that it justified such a foundational level article at a community as mainstream as CIO.com—especially with their IT focus. IT is the most likely starting place for PMOs in an organization.
I’m prepared to accept there is a need for the article, but that is truly concerning—predominantly because of the lack of awareness of PMO purpose that is implied. To understand the PMO concept and decide it won’t help is one thing; to not even be aware of PMOs is something else entirely. So, what is going on? Are those of us who believe in PMOs and promote the value they can bring really that misguided? I don’t think so, but I do think we need to do a better job of getting our message out there. To explore that in more detail we have to start by looking at projects.
Project perception today
It’s obvious that we can’t look
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Published at Wed, 11 Apr 2018 04:00:00 +0000
