If your Project Management Office (PMO) is seen as a hindrance or merely a cost center within your enterprise, then it’s time to do something about it. PMOs should be viewed as enablers and liberators – not inhibitors and obstructers. In some cases, a company may be running a PMO but refuses to put an official title on it, which in turn restricts the PMO’s ability to make much-needed changes. In others, the PMO is simply not seen as a tool for success, it’s seen as something that bogs down processes and limits creative freedom. Regardless of where your PMO stands, there are many ways to help remove its stigma and transform the way it’s perceived within your organization.

Tips for Changing Your Enterprise’s PMO Mindset

While there’s no structure or series of procedures that will work for every single PMO, there are certain concepts that can help every business.

10 Tips for Shifting PMO Opinions

  1. Engage senior leadership – If you can get your decision-makers to involve themselves in the PMO, there’s a better chance that they’ll back it.
  2. Publicize the PMO internally – Share your successes! Show everyone how the PMO helps projects come in on time, on budget, and within scope.
  3. Become integral to the mission – Your results should be critical to the bottom line. If they aren’t, then you may need to re-think your project prioritization.
  4. Keep the PMO aligned to strategic goals – By understanding the role of each project within the portfolio, you can ensure that you are supporting the needs and objectives of your organization.
  5. Know your place – You are a means to an end; that’s it. The PMO is one of many tools within an enterprise that should be focused solely on improving deliverables.
  6. Increase profitability – Money talks. If you can reduce costs, people will notice.
  7. Supply insight – Keep the PMO looking forward. The metrics that you are tracking can be invaluable when it comes to completing future projects successfully.
  8. Identify risks – Strong companies know their weaknesses. The PMO can supply data on risks to management so that perilous situations can be avoided.
  9. Facilitate communication at all levels – Everyone should know what is going on within the PMO – from low-level associates to leaders in the C-suite.
  10. Remain efficient and effective – The PMO should have standardized, repeatable processes in place. Adjustments can only be made if metrics can be compared across the entire portfolio.

 

Removing the Stigma with Hammerhead

Projility’s Hammerhead solutions for Microsoft Project Online and Project Server give PMOs the business intelligence and reporting capabilities they need to transform enterprise attitudes towards PMOs.

Hammerhead offers:

  • Visibility across the entire portfolio. With real-time, role-based dashboards, senior leaders can easily get engaged. Critical insight will be at their fingertips for enhanced decision-making across the organization
  • Color-coded Health, Risk, and Quality indicators. Areas that need improvement can be quickly identified and handled thanks to Hammerhead’s easy-to-read features. If a bottleneck is throwing a project off-track, the PMO will know it – and will be able to mitigate it quickly.
  • Algorithm-based project prioritization. With Hammerhead’s intelligent algorithm, projects can be aligned and realigned to business goals whenever a target is reached or changes.
  • Color-coded Deliverable details and Milestone status updates. Specifics on Deliverables and Milestones can be uncovered within a couple of clicks to help keep projects on track. Everyone can see how close a project is to meeting final goals and completing its assignment.
  • Improved resource utilization. Hammerhead can increase resource utilization by 20-percent and reduce customization and training costs by nearly 25-percent. The PMO will be known as a project facilitator, finding ways for projects to deliver desired outcomes.
  • Uniform reporting templates and data entry. Hammerhead’s pre-built, best-in-class reports can be used to communicate observations and metrics to different management levels. Its consistent templates also help employees adhere to standardized reporting and data-entry practices across the portfolio.
  • Project Ideation. Hammerhead allows you to spawn multiple projects from a single idea without the need for tedious data entry. Projects can be initiated from a single SharePoint list that captures important project related information, this data can then be transposed into project data for multiple projects eliminating the need for duplicate data entry.

It’s time to show everyone just how much the PMO impacts the fundamental operations of your enterprise. With a little help from Hammerhead, you can attain the respect that your PMO deserves.

Give us a call today to learn more about Hammerhead and how it can revolutionize your PMO!

 

Projility provides expert solutions for effective change. We offer enterprise portfolio and project management solutions based on Microsoft Project Server and Project Online, with tailored dashboard reporting, analytics, and decision-making tools via our Hammerhead technology. Projility also implements professional services automation systems established on Microsoft Dynamics CRM Project Service, and presents cloud-based strategies, migrations, and hosting solutions through Microsoft Azure. Contact us for more information.