Creating a new project management office (PMO) is both challenging and rewarding, no matter how many times you go through the process. Bringing in help, such as Agile consulting services for your new PMO, can smooth the process along whilst also expediting the office creation.
Agile consulting services can vary, and knowing what type of agile consultant you need can be tricky. You want to be sure you’re utilising the services you need for your PMO and investing your limited budget wisely.
Here, we’re going to look at:
- Why using Agile consulting services is a good idea
- Different consulting services that are available
- The use cases for the consulting services
Why does my new PMO need Agile consulting services?
The process of setting up a PMO can take a major investment of both time and resources. You want to make sure everything goes well, and Agile consulting services can aid this.
Agile consulting services can:
- Make the initial PMO startup fast – you can bring in talent temporarily to get the big pieces of work done, so you can move on to supporting projects faster.
- Save money in the long-run – with Agile consulting, you’re bringing in experts to get the job done, so you’re less likely to need to revisit incomplete or ineffective processes later.
- Let you focus on the task at hand – when you need to get your Agile PMO set up and delivering results quickly, you can leave the admin tasks of creating a PMO to experts in the process.
Depending on the new PMO you’re creating, you can make a solid business case to the C-suite to make the investment in Agile consultancy.
What Agile consulting services are available?
The Agile consulting services you need will depend on where your gaps are. As a PMO leader or operative, it’s important to know what you don’t know and bring in the talent you need fill those gaps. Here are the ways an Agile consultancy can help your PMO:
- PMO setup and design – Designing your PMO gives you the foundations for the work you’re going to accomplish. This stage can take time and expertise that you may not have in the business, so outsourcing to a consultancy to give you a roadmap to design and create your PMO can give you the direction you need. Use this type of consultancy when you need to get your PMO moving fast.
- Strategy – You may understand the mechanics and principles of a PMO, but you also need to embed the company’s strategic vision. An Agile consultancy can help you understand how the overarching business strategy can help and guide your PMO’s activities and make sure you will add value where the business needs it. Strategic consultancy is helpful when you have fresh leadership who need guidance on overall business needs.
- Training – Whether you and your project managers have worked within a PMO structure before or not, training everyone through an Agile consulting company is important. Delivering engaging training sessions is a skill that you may not have the bandwidth to offer in-house, so bringing in an outside consultancy to make sure everyone understands what the Agile methodology is and how it’ll work under your PMO is a savvy move.
- Tooling – With the ever-changing landscape of communication, task management, and collaboration tools, it can be difficult to put together your PMO’s tool stack. Agile consultants can help you understand your needs and the tools on the market that will help you work smarter. When you’re used to the same tools in a previous PMO, bringing in a consultant can save hours of research to help work out your tooling requirements.
- Reporting – Each set of projects in a portfolio can be different, so the KPIs, dashboards, and metrics you used in a previous PMO may not work for your new Agile set up. A consultancy can look at the work you’re doing and the goals you want to achieve and work through a set of targets and metrics, and should also be able to deal with the tech to get your reporting C-suite-ready. Take on this type of Agile consultant when your PMO needs instant and visual results from the beginning.
Agile consulting services for your new PMO
Bringing in Agile consultants as you create your PMO can free up your time and resources to get your PMO working as soon as possible. There are a range of services that you can seek consultation for. We’ll look at these in upcoming articles.
