Highlighting the value of your project management office (PMO) can be the difference between its survival and getting closed down within the first few years. Making sure the wider business is fully aware of what your PMO can do can be achieved through using case studies to educate the business.

You can make sure the business knows that your office exists through awareness strategies and then take that deeper by offering education to the business and demonstrating the value your office offers.

As well as offering in-class training and making your resources available to the wider business, you can communicate your successes through case studies. To help you plan this strategy, we’ll be looking at:

  • Why case studies can help educate a business about your PMO
  • How you go about using case studies for education
  • The different ways you can measure the success of using case studies
  • Which business types and models this form of PMO business education can help with

Why should I use case studies to educate a business about my PMO?

Your office, your project managers, and your project teams will all already understand the value of the work your PMO does. Even your C-suite sponsor will see the reports about successfully delivered projects and appreciate the work you do.

The wider business may still find your office elusive – and not everyone will want to engage with training or be in a position to use your resources. However, your colleagues can still share in the successes of your PMO.

Case studies tell a story and this will be relatable to the people who work in the business. It puts real people and results into the work you do and engages the people you work alongside. You can also show clear and active value that you add by talking about project deliverables.

How do I use case studies to educate a business about my PMO?

Writing a case study will require some planning to get right. You may wish to collaborate with your marketing department or with a professional writer.

First, you need to choose a project to present to the business. Look at recent projects that had challenges that your office helped to overcome and ended up delivering on the project KPIs – you want to talk about a successful project, after all!

Once you’ve chosen the project you want to feature in the case study, you need to gather all the information about it. During the project closing process, you’ll already have gathered all the relevant data and reviewed the outcomes, so you can refer to that for your case study.

You can also consider interviewing the end-users and clients to talk about the benefits of the project your PMO stewarded to completion.

Armed with the information, the case study needs to be written. Brief the person writing it to focus on the actions and interventions of your PMO. This may be additional support your team offered or how your documents supported a smooth delivery.

After production, you need to get the case study out there. To connect with the wider business, have it published on your internal communication channels such as the intranet the company newsletter. You can also work with the marketing team to publish it on your social and public-facing channels such as LinkedIn and the company’s blog – spreading the influence of your PMO even wider.

How can I measure the success of a case study on business education about my PMO?


Publishing project case studies is a soft tactic when educating the business about your PMO. It can be hard to get clear results from it but there are elements you can measure.

How many people clicked on and read your case studies is a good measure of how many people have learned about your successes. You can also embed a poll within the case study to understand what value your readers took away from it.

You can also conduct a survey across the business – or tack on a question to an existing business-wide survey – to understand how many people are educated about your PMO efforts.

Which business suit case studies as a form of PMO education?

Using case studies to educate a business about your PMO works when your PMO is in a business with a strong internal communications team. It can also be successful when projects are the main focus of the business, e.g. a software or construction firm.