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Ways A PMO Can Improve Your ROI
By Dennis Sommer (www.dennissommer.com)
Companies are realizing that a wealth of value can be
realized by providing project management oversight and
standardization for their projects. The Project Management
Office (PMO) offers the products and services supporting
these goals. This article looks at many of the possible
PMO responsibilities that add value to your company.
A PMO offers many potential products and services, depending
on the needs of your company. Before the PMO can add value
and be successful, it must gain agreement from top management
and customers on its overall role, goals, and expectations.
This list provides many possible responsibilities a PMO
would perform to add value to your company. The list can
be considered a PMO organization best practice structure.
Depending on your company goals, a PMO could perform all
or some of these responsibilities.
Standardization
Deploys a standard set of project management processes,
checklists, forms and templates, which saves each project
manager and project team from having to create these
on their own. These reusable project management tools
help projects start up more quickly, improve quality
and reduce overall effort.
Best Practices
Builds and updates the project/process methodologies
to account for improvements and best practices. The
PMO then deploys the updated best practices consistently
throughout the organization. Learning from past mistakes
will reduce future effort and cost.
Measure
Tracks project baseline, actual, and business value
metrics. This scorecard provides top management and
customers with a business oriented executive reporting
system to ensure proactive management of troubled projects.
Assessments
Assesses the overall project environment (definition
through deployment) on an ongoing basis to determine
the improvements that are needed or have been made.
Proactive assessments have been proven to reduce project
cost and schedule overruns.
Communication
Facilitates improved communications by having common
terminology, processes, and deliverables. Less confusion
and misunderstanding occurs within the organization
if everyone uses the same terminology and language for
project work.
Training
Provides project management training to build core competencies
and a common set of best practice processes. Internal
training will provide a consistent message, reduce overall
training costs, and provide career development opportunities.
Mentoring
Provides project management coaching services. Experienced
program and project managers mentor less experienced
staff to keep projects from getting into trouble. High
priority or at risk projects can be mentored to ensure
that risks are mitigated and projects continue smoothly.
Project Tracking
Tracks and reports current status information for all
projects in the organization and provides project/program/portfolio
visibility to top management and customers in a standard
and consistent manner. Provides real time information
to make better decisions quicker.
Advocate
Acts as the program and project management advocate
for the company. This includes actively educating top
management, customers, managers and team members on
the value gained through the use of consistent project
management processes.
Repository
Organizes and tracks all procedures, methodologies,
deliverables, schedules, contracts, etc. in a document
repository. Documents can then be located within minutes
instead of hours or days. Decisions can be made quicker.
Audits
Performs ongoing or random project audits. Project audits
uncover hidden problems or opportunities to improve
the project. Audits have been proven to reduce project
cost and schedule overruns. They also identify career
and educational opportunities within the project team.
Reward System
Working with human resources, develops and manages a
reward systems by tying a portion of the employee's
performance review and bonus to the project performance
metrics. This reward system improves project performance
and staff development.
Procurement
Provides a centralized acquisition and procurement function
for project teams. Negotiates and manages contracts
in a consistent manner. Develops best practice procurement
procedures. A centralized procurement function has improved
project return on investment (ROI) and lowered total
cost of ownership (TCO).
About The Author
- Dennis Sommer
 Dennis
Sommer is the founder and CEO of Executive Business Advisers,
a management consulting firm helping senior executives
maximize both sales and profit growth. Dennis specializes
in strategic planning, sales, marketing and operations
performance improvement.
Dennis is a highly
sought after author, keynote and seminar speaker on
sales, leadership and business best practices.
Contact Dennis at www.executivebusinessadvisers.com
or www.dennissommer.com
.
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