When having a project management office (abbreviated to PMO) in a Telecom company, an organization has a group or the entire department in charge of defining and maintaining the standard for project management within a business. This group of skilled professionals does its best to standardize and introduce economies of repetition in the execution of projects.
Their office can be considered a point of supply for any documentation, guidance, and metrics on the process of PM and project execution.
What is the importance of PMO?
First of all, when considering just how many reasons for project failures are there – one can only imagine the importance of PMO within the organization. Some of those reasons are, for example, inadequate project estimating and planning, lack of executive sponsorship, or poorly defined goals and objectives.
Because of all those weak points, establishing a solid project management approach is of the utmost importance. Moreover, it will help increase success probability as the PMO will deal with measuring a project’s key performance indicators of quality, scope, schedule, budgets, and benefits.
Some surveys indicate that an established PMO is among the top 3 reasons that drive successful project delivery!
The PMOs control and influence projects
A PMO is an entity that grants ways of centralized project management oversight. Sometimes, a PMO is responsible for program and portfolio management as well. However, its control and influence strongly depend on the type of PMO structure within the enterprise. There are quite a few, but we’ll list the most important ones:
- The supportive type is the one with a primarily consultative role;
- Controlling one requiring compliance, for example;
- Directive type that takes control and manages the projects.
Anyhow, the PMO facilitates sharing of resources, methodologies, tools, and techniques.
So why set up a project management office?
Needless to say, there are more than a few benefits of having an established PMO within the company. First, as we already said, it is the best way to have standardized project management and delivery processes. Also, when creating a centralized knowledge database for capturing and sharing knowledge and experience – you are improving transparency, communication, and reporting within one primary point of contact.
Therefore, you will align all of your business strategies with current and future project planning and execution while – at the same time, the organization will implement standard practices and procedures. It will result in the more efficient management of shared resources.
Who works in PMO?
If you are lucky (and clever) enough, your PMO will be filled with competent project managers who are experienced enough to know how to choose a good project management tool. Also, they will need to figure out how to get their project across the finish line in a predictable manner.
We are talking here about cost and quality, of course.
However, all is not so straightforward. There is something that all those in the telco industry must understand. The special nature of telco projects, its unique characteristics that sometimes demand a hybrid approach, using the simple and flexible tools, and carried out by PMs with exceptional skills.
How to set up a PMO in a few steps?
The first step is creating a business case. Next, it must be built in such a manner to justify the implementation of a proposed project management office. This phase exists to help organizations evaluate whether their buy-in and planning are worth doing before moving forward with a project.
It will outline the objectives of the PMO, the benefits and limitations, just about any risks involved in starting a PMO, an estimated cost of implementation, a rough timeline or length of the project, the potential impact on the business, and some other relevant information…
The next step is equally important and implies assigning strong leadership – the project sponsor, the project manager, and others who will be directly involved in the project’s success.
Then comes the charter.
The project manager must draft the project charter to establish the PMO. It includes the project scope, high-level requirements, relevant assumptions, constraints, and significant milestones.
The last step is following the project management lifecycle.
Creating a PMO is just like any other project. Its lifecycle is built from phases such as initiation, planning, execution, monitoring, controlling, and closure.
Plus, any other standard processes, procedures, and documentation must be created just like any other project. It means you will need a baseline scope, schedule, budget, assigned resources, materials, and requirements or outcomes to measure success against.
We are sure you would do anything to increase the chances of your new PMO being successful, right? In that case, consider the following tips: obtain long-term buy-in, focus on early wins, maintain motivation through the down periods, ensure you have defined measures of success, and incorporate enough flexibility for the PMO to adapt and mature!
How can Teodesk help you with setting up your new PMO?
When establishing a PMO within your organization, you need a tool aligned with the execution model. In addition, it should be user-friendly and somewhat flexible, with many options to customize processes.
Well, how about Teodesk then?
It can help you track activities and keep project participants on the same page, allowing any issue tracking.
The PMO work will be effectively completed, optimizing PM costs, and your PMO staff will take great pride in their results and productivity.
Conclusion
To conclude, we will again go through all the advantages of establishing a successful PMO within your organization.
For starters, it is a great way to solve any targeted issues, pain points, and performance gaps that might burden your workflow and hence, your entire business.
A PMO can drive better project assurance and control over it. It is designed to capture and maintain quality data – enabling accurate planning, greater business predictability, and informed decision-making. Also, its creation will drive cost efficiency and budget planning optimization.
Finally, having a carried out Project Management Office might significantly improve the project selection, securing and maintaining long-term competitive advantages.
