Changing the way your project management office (PMO) functions is a major challenge. You may think it’s a pointless exercise, but there are some very compelling reasons to restructure your PMO.
As businesses change, so must your PMO. That’s not the only reason you should be looking whether your office needs a refresh. We’re going to explore some of the compelling reasons to shake things up across your PMO and your projects.
In this article, we’ll be covering why you should restructure your PMO, such as:
- To fix a dip in targets
- Following a change in business ownership
- When a pivotal team member moves on
- A new methodology is being adopted
- The stakeholder profile changes
Restructuring when something is broken
There may be the odd month where your PMO doesn’t hit every KPI. This is to be expected and can usually be smoothed out over the quarter. However, if there is a trend for a decline in attainment in your PMO, it’s time to think about restructuring.
Other issues that you may spot include not being able to align your work with the business’s strategic goals. Whether the strategy has changed or your office has lost focus – a reorganisation can bring things back on track.
Mergers and acquisitions
As the business you operate in expands, it’s likely there’ll be another PMO in a company that’s brought into the fold. This can be a concerning time since a lot of work may be duplicated.
Bringing together the functions and jobs within two PMOs will require a wholesale restructure. It’s your chance to pick and choose the elements that are successful from all sides. You can rejuvenate you:
- Processes
- Functions
- Methods
- Management style
And start with a clean slate.
Restructuring a PMO after a change in talent
Are you a new hire into your PMO? Have you been promoted into the role of leading your PMO? It can be a great opportunity to stamp your mark on how projects are run by reorganising the office.
Whether you’ve been pushing for change from your lower-level role for years or you’ve ran a successful PMO on very different terms, you can run a reorganisation of your PMO and get things whipped into shape.
Another circumstance where talent changes can force a PMO restructure is when an important player leaves their job. If your previous strategy analyst had a long list of tasks and a bulging salary, it may be time to change things – reallocate some tasks and optimise other team members.
Harnessing a new opportunity with an PMO reorganisation
If you’ve spotted the chance to change the way your office fundamentally functions, it’s probably the right time to fully reorganise your PMO at the same time.
When you want to become more involved in the commissioning of projects and become more strategy led, changing to a business-focussed, or enterprise PMO (EPMO) is a sensible move. This will need a change in:
- Job roles
- Processes
- Reporting lines
- KPIs
With this, a complete restructure makes sense.
Even when you decide you want to move from Waterfall to Agile, or Kanban to Scrum, you’ll probably find yourself changing so much that a full restructure of your PMO makes sense.
Changing stakeholders and changing your PMO structure
As the people your PMO serves changes, so must the structure it works under. If your PMO has previously worked to deliver projects for corporate clients and the business starts to take on retail customers, you’ll need to rethink how you work.
Similarly, if the business has worked on delivering for government contracts and begins to open up to private enterprise, you’ll need to change the way you work.
Rather than plugging in new team members, it can be worth overhauling the whole structure of your PMO. This will keep the office nimble for the future and will also demonstrate the office’s commitment to the shift in business strategy.
The take home
There can be lots of reasons to restructure your PMO. Change for change’s sake can be disruptive and demoralising, but when the right opportunity arises you should grasp it and refresh your PMO.
Before brining about a transformation in your PMO, make sure that it is called for – whether it’s no longer performing, has new management or ownership, or you want to bring in a new method of running things – so that there is a clear reason for the investment in time and resources to make it a success.
