| Articles » Why It Makes Sense to Have a Strategic Enterprise Office |
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Why It Makes Sense to Have a Strategic
Enterprise Office |
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| by Michael Stanleigh |
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| Many organizations create a number of project management
offices (PMO) in different departments. According to the findings
of a global research study of over 750 organizations, this may not
be a good idea. To be most successful, a PMO needs to have direct
influence on the entire organization, not just one department. And
it needs to be run as a business that is accountable to its customers
and to the bottom-line. |
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| Research proves that the very survival of a PMO is often dependent
on its ability to service the entire organization, rather than an
exclusive department. Furthermore, the project management office team
must appear seamless and in sync with their messaging and approach
across the entire organization. |
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| Consider the PMO as a Service Agency |
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| Successful project management offices are viewed very
much as a Service Agency. That is, they are seen as providing valued
services to the business and to the project managers rather than
performing as information consolidators and distributors. They focus
on providing added convenience for project team members rather than
on focusing on enforcement of standards. They deliver services consistently
with a high level of quality. |
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| When a PMO is located within a department, it will tend to focus
on departmental projects rather than on organization-wide projects.
Why is this? Though a departmental PMO may have some influence on
global projects, it often struggles to gain the buy-in from other
departments, either because there is dispute or lack of agreement
between entities over the best project management process or lack
of agreement to existing tools and templates. Lack of agreement leads
to wasted effort and frustration and usually gets in the way of successful
project completion. |
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| The challenge for most organizations is two-fold: |
- How to best combine these offices so that the individual needs of each department are still being met as well as the combined needs of the organization?
- How to create the best organizational structure and identify the right individuals to manage this new Strategic Enterprise Office?
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| Combining Project Management Offices Into One Strategic
Enterprise Office |
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| There are a number of critical steps to ensure that
departmental Project Management Offices are successfully combined
into one Strategic Enterprise Office: |
- Create an inventory of all projects managed and/or overseen
by each Project Management Office.
- Create a project prioritization process to identify the relative
importance of each project to overall organizational as well as
departmental success. As well, identify the strategic importance
of each project. If they are not somehow aligned with corporate
strategy it is likely they will not survive the transition from
project management office to strategic enterprise project office.
- Identify the resources required to manage and oversee the high
priority projects. This will help in the creation of the structure
for this new office. Current thinking, supported by the PMO research,
“From Crisis To Control: A New Era In Strategic Project
Management,” indicates that project management offices
should oversee projects to ensure success as well monitoring and
coaching them in the use of consistent processes, tools and templates
but they should not be directly managing these offices.
- Create the structure for the Strategic Enterprise Office. This
will include: who will manage the office, to whom they will report,
how many resources will be included in the structure and what
each of their roles and responsibilities will be.
- Develop competencies for each of the required roles for this
new Strategic Enterprise Office. These competencies will represent
the skills, knowledge and experience required to successfully
meet the identified roles and responsibilities.
- Measure all of the project management office staff against the
competencies in order to determine who will be the best candidates
to fill the positions required for the Strategic Enterprise Office.
- Review the different project management processes, practices,
tools and templates used by the various project management offices.
This is a difficult task in so far as you are now trying to determine
which of the best practices should remain in the new Strategic
Enterprise Office. One benchmark will be to what extent each project
management office was able to consistently demonstrate project
success as a direct result of the project management practices
they implemented.
- Manage the change from the current departmentally based project
management offices into the Strategic Enterprise Office by using
a strategic
change management process, which engages all staff.
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| Summary |
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| The goal of a Strategic Enterprise Office is to help
the organization manage projects successfully in today’s complex,
global marketplace. Managing projects across departments, locations
and countries is best managed through a Strategic Enterprise Office,
as it will hold the responsibility for ensuring consistency in the
management of all elements of each of these projects. The successful
management of these projects has a direct impact on the success of
the organization, its customers and its resources. |
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| About the Author |
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| As President and CEO of Business Improvement Architects, Michael works with executives and senior managers around the world to help them improve operational effectiveness through strategic planning, leadership development, project management and quality management. He has been instrumental in helping his clients reduce waste and increase efficiencies and profits with his clear processes and quality approach. |
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| For more information about this article, please contact
bia™ at info@bia.ca. |
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| Michael Stanleigh is author of the global report: “2010 PMO Global Study: How a Project Management Office Can Improve Organizational Effectiveness”.
For more information about this article or the report, please contact
bia™ at info@bia.ca. |
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| © Business Improvement Architects |
