Programme Management Office
Successful multinational organisations are becoming increasingly reliant on highly complex change programmes to meet challenging business goals. These programmes are complex: they may cover multiple geographies; have interdependent governance structures, plans, timelines and deliverables; and are targeted to deliver to tight deadlines and budgets.
The traditional response has been to establish a Programme Management Office (PMO) with the primary objective of managing complexity. This makes eminent sense; putting in place a dedicated and disciplined team can ensure projects are executed with greater confidence of successful delivery. Many useful tools and techniques have been created over the past two decades to support this approach. This being the case, why do so many global programmes fail to deliver what was expected, by the agreed date and to the agreed budget?
From i2a's experience we have identified the two most common causes of PMO failure (click on the links below to read more about the common symptoms associated with each):
We have distilled our experience to offer a simple, pragmatic approach for establishing an effective and efficient PMO (click here to read more about some of the techniques we typically use):
- First, establish clear goals, then mobilise the programme and PMO accordingly. The key is to set-up the programme to succeed. This requires participation from all stakeholders to establish realistic objectives and build support for the desired outcome. Plans and decision-making processes are aligned with the outcomes and individual responsibilities are clearly communicated. All activities must support the agreed deliverables and all deliverables must support a business goal. Recipients of deliverables that form a dependency between projects are engaged early and treated as customers for the output. Minimum, critical administration processes are agreed and communicated.
- Staff the PMO with a small number of experienced people. PMO staff need to know what they are doing; they should be experienced in project management and in the PMO role. They have an important role in deploying common project management processes and templates, and establishing a common language for communication across projects. They should be able to plan, facilitate and document key decision making workshops. Simplicity is key: overloading project managers with complex, unnecessary reporting and administrative requirements rarely helps programmes and projects succeed.
