What Does A Project Management Office (PMO) Do?

In the previous post we were introduced to of project management office (PMO) and broadly looked at what it strives to achieve, what are its goals and types of PMO. In this post we will get into the details of, what does a project management office (PMO) do?

A PMO in enterprise business is in fact, structured and perceived as a department that oversees or get involved in project management activities across the departments of the business. These activities typically include project management training, coaching, governance, implementation, identifying need of project management for a given business problem, or determining the best practices to manage project planning, tracking, to create project template, project reports.

On the other hand, in case of small or medium enterprises, though PMO can take a formal shape but is represented by an individual or a small set of people. But even in smaller scale, PMO in SME can identify and address the same issues as in large enterprises and support business functions in managing projects better.

So broadly speaking what does project management office (PMO) tries to do – is to achieve following things

• Advocate, champion for greater adoption of project management processes  (which by the way, isn’t just about schedule/Gantt chart or project cost tracking; project management processes as a whole – right from project approvals, project budgeting, schedule planning, risk management, resourcing, incident management, time & expenses tracking, change management, meeting management, etc).
• Decide the rules of the games by creating common standard of policies, procedures for conducting project management in the organisation; also decide, implement & track project management KPIs.
• Highlight best practices of project management function and support project teams to follow these best practices
• Be the center of excellence for project management function in the organization and serve as a GoTo entity for project management questions, issues or decisions
• Simplify the project management processes so adaption becomes easier. Simplification can be achieved with automation of processes with project portfolio management software and PMO tools
• Provide necessary information for executive management and sponsors to take decisions regarding projects as well as be the agent for desired change in the organization

A project management office (PMO) serves as a linchpin to make project management approach successful for a given organization. Many people consider it as support function. Fair enough! It does provide support for making project related decisions. So what kind of support does PMO provide?

Interested? Read More 10 Things Great Managers Do

In next post we will delve further into project management office functions and activities it has to perform on a day to day basis.

Your life can be become easier with the right project management system. ZilicusPM is the right PMO software tool for you and your team. Get started now.

Additional readings about project management, leadership

• Case Study: What Happens When Project Team Has Dual Reporting
• Avoid These 10 Most Common Mistakes That Leads to Project Failure
• Back2Basics: Ultimate Project Management Guide: Project Planning
• 8 Reasons to Decide Whether Your Organization Needs Project Management Office
• Compare the best project management software 
• All in one project management software
• Guide to selecting best project management software

Do you know ZilicusPM project management software offers comprehensive project planning, project tracking, project collaboration capabilities such as

• Gantt Chart
• Time Tracking
• Budgeting and Cost Management
• Resource Planning and Management
• Issue Tracking
• Risk Management
• Change Management
• Meeting Management
• Stakeholder Management
• Project Portfolio Management
• Project Reporting
• Document Management to help you manage and deliver projects better?

About Zilicus

Zilicus offers the best project portfolio management tool ZilicusPM, with robust project management tools capabilities and easy ways to track project management KPI,

Know more about project portfolio management, Gantt chart, best project management tool, project management office, project management tips, project planning guide, project risk management, project scope management, effective project management, project manager guides and know more about Project Portfolio Management Software, Project Management Software Guide.