Several years ago Mark Mullaly defined the 4 types of a Program Management Office. There is a discussion on Josh Nankivel's site asking about PMO best practices. Here's Mark's matrix.
Scorekeeper
- Monitor and report progress of project portfolio
- Program and project information conduit
- Clearing house for consolidated status updates
Facilitator
- Enable improvement efforts
- Source of best practices
Quarterback
- Focus on project delivery
- PMs report to the PMO
- Central point of accountability
Perfectionist
- Control focused improvement
- PMO is the “center of excellence”
- Agent for change regarding how the organization does projects.
PMO Risks
- Emphasis of technology over process and their results
- Roles and responsibilities either not developed or are worked out “on the fly.”
- Reluctance to share information between all participants
- Mixed messages sent to stakeholders
- Emphasis on defining “roles” before discovering the problem domain
A Successful PMO
- Eliminates duplication of data and processes among Project Managers.
- Establishes processes for managing all IT projects. Cultivates “unnatural” levels of cooperation.
- Institutes new operating mode with detailed definition of process, roles, and measures.
- Maintains a balanced scorecard to reward new skills and roles for process owners.
- Promotes change from status–quo, upstream and downstream of IT mission.
- Nurtures organizational neutrality.
- Instills a passion for the profession of project management’s processes, practices, and tools.
