As organizations try to deal with the economic downturn, they're taking a hard look at the ROI of just about every endeavor—including the Project Management Office (PMO).

At Siemens Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) Software, we believe our PMO for the EMEA region still continues to bring value both to the organization and our customers.

Many PMOs are being challenged on a number of fronts, including being viewed as just administrative support units, as an unnecessary overhead that slows project management work, and as not delivering business benefits.

Even in these challenging times, the PMO within Siemens PLM Software is deemed 'fit for purpose' and I believe it's because we have evolved to be seen as supportive of the organization as a whole and not grown to a size that outweighs our business benefit. We are too valuable to lose but equally important; we are not too expensive to keep

A PMO is a group or department within a business, agency or enterprise that defines and maintains standards for project management within the organization. The primary goal of a PMO is to achieve benefits from standardising and following project management policies, processes, and methods, and generally assumes one of three styles, being either supportive, controlling or directive in approach.

Summarizing this then a PMO should:

·         Ensure that all projects are aligned with the overall business strategy

·         Highlight key project inter-dependencies and align releases across interdependent projects

·         Assist in timely decision making on the overall control of projects

·         Approve change requests of global relevance

·         Monitor and report on projects

From its inception three years ago, our PMO focused on people and process. The original 'pitch' to the business, as we justified the initial investment, was to focus on the 5 'Ps':

• People
• Process
• Promotion
• Performance
• PM Information System

With an immediate priority of focusing on 'People' and 'Process' the PMO completed a number of 'baselining' activities:

·         A Maturity Assessment was completed

·         A survey undertaken identifying the PMs experience and challenges

·         A 'bring out your dead' project amnesty was promoted in order to find the true 'health' of all of the projects out there (or lack of health in some cases)

The survey of the project management community members identified three top issues:

·         A lack of methodology or common process

·         A lack of skills or training

·         Resource management challenges

So the immediate focus was to improve these three critical gaps - the PMO supported the development of a global methodology and training of all PMs, PMP certification began and improvements in resource management commenced.

By developing internal programs aimed at addressing these issues, the PMO was immediately seen as a supportive organization and not merely as an administrative overhead.

Beyond the initial focus the PMO extended its purview to performance and promotion shortly after formation. The move has ensured good communication of the PMO's benefits to management and customers. Delivering a regular newsletter, hosting knowledge-sharing sessions, showcasing project case studies, inputting updates to our methodology and never saying "no" to requests for assistance have all helped put the PMO on peoples' radar as an organization that helps rather than hinders.

Conclusion

I strongly believe the PMO has a place in a project based organization, even in these times of restricted finances. In fact, I believe they have a place especially in these times.

On one hand, companies of all kinds face the global recession. On the other, we are part of a dynamic, resourceful and ever-evolving world that demands change as part of its survival. And change demands projects, and projects demand project managers.

Those projects that will be commissioned in the future, as well as the ones that are allowed to continue in the current climate, will be expected to deliver higher business impact, endure closer scrutiny and face far more pressure to deliver.

And who will be under the most pressure? You guessed it, the project manager.

Right now our projects, and our project managers, need the help, support and guidance of a good PMO. Just make sure that your PMO's focus is the right one for your business