The PMO: Harm or Harmony? (Part II)

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The PMO: Harm or Harmony? (Part II)
Andrew Makar, PMP (June 14, 2007)

In theory, project management offices and project managers work together to deliver value to their organization in a consistent manner. In practice, PMOs and project managers often step on each other’s toes in a clash between results and processes. In part four of a series, here are five more best practices for fine-tuning the tango — this time from the PMO’s perspective.

This is the fourth article in an ongoing series about PMO best practices. The previous article — “The PMO: Harm or Harmony?” (Part 1) — reviewed the project manager’s perspective on PMOs and provided five tips to improve PMO involvement in project delivery. This article takes the PMO’s perspective and addresses the project manager’s role in improving interactions.

Project management offices have administrative processes that can be misconstrued as overhead or potential roadblocks to project delivery. Effective PMOs are able to integrate these processes into the delivery cycle without causing bureaucratic drag. An effective PMO is a resource for project managers to leverage. But project managers need to understand the role of the PMO in portfolio governance, process quality assurance and project management coaching. The following five tips will help project managers improve their interaction with the PMO.

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