Question
Our PMO seems more interested in policing my projects than in providing useful help. They are always asking for updates against standard templates and exception reports but when we ask them for assistance e.g. development support, specialist advice or to organise facilities for us they simply refuse. Why is this the case and what can I do about it?
Our response
The behaviour of a PMO is based upon two considerations. What the ‘sponsor’ or owner are expecting it to provide to the business and how mature the organisation, the PMO and its management are.
In the first instance whoever has paid for the PMO will have dictated what products and services it provides to the organisation. If this is a member of senior management they may well be fundamentally interested in the overall risk, cost and delivery rates of the corporate portfolio of change initiatives. Their perspective is one driven out of minimising the organisations risk profile through defensive mechanisms; hence the requirement for standardised reporting on the performance of projects as a proxy for the level of cost, risk and progress that they are exposing the business to.
If this is the sole, or even primary, focus of the PMO it is understandable why you see their behaviour as being ‘policing’ as it fundamentally is:– make sure all projects stay in line. They do this by focusing their efforts on being able to spot and react to deviant initiatives; we typically style these as control PMOs.
More mature organisations also require a ‘bed-rock’ of sound information on their change initiatives but are progressive enough to recognise that the best way to achieve increased safety in the portfolio is to aim efforts at prevention rather than reaction. In this situation the mandate of the PMO will be to provide support and development opportunities to the organisation’s projects and their managers. The need for management information is more a ‘necessary hygiene-factor’ (they must provide it but it is not central to their ethos or the way they operate) for such guidance PMOs and so they don’t appear as overbearing as the former control type.
You would be far more likely to approach a guidance PMO as it would offer you advice and expert counsel on such matters as tailoring lifecycles/methodologies, initiating projects cleanly and leveraging maximum effect from risk management.
By the sound of it you are hoping for a guidance PMO but being faced by a control PMO. However, in either event you are likely to be disappointed in your request for administrative support; neither type of PMO should be providing that – their function is not and never should be, to provide administrative headcount to projects.
PAshton
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