Gems from Part III - The PMO in Detail
In a section titled "Performance to Budget - Leaving money on the table", the authors observe:
"Without a PMO, it becomes every function for itself, with the CEO trying
to referee. However, most CEOs do not have the time, patience or project management
skills to track all of the organization's projects against the organization's goals
... The worst shock of all from senior executives is to find out how many active projects
are not directly tied to any of the organization's strategic goals."[9]
In discussing "Project Portfolio Management",
"The four biggest universal problems in project portfolios are:
- Too many active projects (often double what an organization should have)
- Wrong projects (projects that will not provide value to the organization)
- Projects not linked to strategic goals
- Unbalanced portfolio [e.g. Too much on the supply side, not enough on the market
side; or Too much short term and not enough long term, etc.]"[10]
On PMO Roles and Responsibilities:
"Every role [should be created] from a value based perspective ... If
your PMO creates a staff position that is not contributing directly to the throughput
of the organization, the executive team will quickly see it as unnecessary overhead."[11]
On measuring the PMO:
"A PMO provides many separate values to its customers. The values should show up in three major elements of a measurement system:
- Reduced project cycle times
- More projects completed during the fiscal year with the same resources
- More tangible contribution to the organization's goals in terms of reduced costs,
increased goal units (revenues or some other measurement), and better ROI"[12]
"Recommendation"
"As you begin to plan the PMO implementation, seriously consider establishing
visible value to senior management from the get-go. Go after the low-hanging fruit
that helps everyone win and the PMO will be on its way ... Build a PMO that will "Deliver
Value Now"."[13]
9. Ibid, p156
10. Ibid, p207
11. Ibid, p300
12. Ibid, p316
13. Ibid, 290
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Gems
from Part I - Setting the Stage 
