How to develop a PMO charter
Everyone involved in project management knows the importance of creating a solid project charter at the start of a project. However, it is not so common to develop a PMO charter when setting up a central PMO. What is a PMO charter? Very simply, a PMO charter describes the background purpose, objectives, organisation and services…

PMO purpose, vision and design principles
Unfortunately, in many cases, when a decision is made to set-up a PMO, all attention turns directly to the activities that need to be set-up with no consideration to the purpose, vision and design principles. When you think about this it is very strange, you would not start on any activity on a project without…
Description of a hybrid PMO
This will be a very quick blog post more for completeness. In the last 2 articles covered the administrative and pro-active PMO’s. Obviously these are the 2 extremes of a the PMO maturity model. In many cases a PMO is implemented that is somewhere between these 2 models (or even one that starts of as…
Description of a managerial / pro-active PMO
The last post dealt with the definition of the reporting PMO. This is the one most senior managers have experienced and unfortunately has the perception that it is purely consolidating data and adding little value, hence it is usually staffed by junior resources. At the other end of the spectrum is a managerial / pro-active…
Description of an administrative / reporting PMO
The Administrative or Reporting PMO (report clearing house) is the basic form of PMO. Due to this it is the type of PMO that most management have experience of. The main purpose of an Administrative PMO is: Report consolidation Report distribution Track deliverables / milestones Programme administration Document management Report Consolidation In order to simplify…
PMO manager role and responsibilities
This post spends some time considering the role of the PMO manager. If an organisation is serious about improving the project delivery capability through a PMO, it is very important that the right candidate is appointed to the role. Unfortunately, as many organisations view the PMO as an administrative centre, they automatically assume that it…

PMO project monitoring and project tracking
Project monitoring and project tracking is a very important aspect of the responsibilities of a PMO. In fact, regardless if a PMO is in place or not, project tracking must be done. Why you need project tracking and project reporting The reason for this is in order to ensure that a project is making progress…
PMO tools – project document storage
It is usual for a project or programme to create a number of important documents during the duration of the project. Due to the time invested to create the project documents, it is very important that it is easy to locate them. It is unfortunate that in many cases project documents are stored in multiple…
PMO tools – project procurement
Procurement is often over looked when setting up a PMO. This is usually because there is some form of process for securing external resources, software, vendor, etc (or the true reality, smart people know a way of getting it done). Interestingly, the Project Management Institute dedicate an entire chapter in the PMBOK (book of knowledge)…
PMO tools – project communication
Project communication is so often overlooked as part of the project and PMO planning mobilisation process. When you stop to think, the success of a project is based on a number of people working together to deliver a common goal. In order for them to be effective, it is critical that they communicate. Unfortunately many…