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Abstract
The Project Management Office (PMO) is an organizational entity that maintains the standard of projects and may also provide resourcing to support the project management process across an organization. The PMO can be involved in portfolio or program management as well as strategic project development and management. Traditionally associated with IT (Information Technology) projects, the PMO approach has now been adopted in other applications and industries. However, there remain a lack a frameworks to properly describe the specification and functioning of the PMO. Therefore, this paper will provide insights from an exploratory study of the PMO approach to organizing and managing projects, including the results of a literature study related to engineering projects that will be used to develop a framework to describe the potential role, structure and processes of the PMO. This framework will be of use to practitioners looking to design and establish a PMO in order to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the project management process. The findings will be used to develop a research agenda to inform future studies needed to further understand the theoretical basis of the PMO as well as the practical implications of implementing an organizational PMO.
Keywords
Project Management Office, PMO, Engineering Projects, Multi-Project Management.
Introduction
The Project Management Office or PMO is an organizational entity that is created in order to standardize how projects are undertaken and to generate efficiencies through so called 'economies of repetition' (Davies and Brady, 2000). Such repetition of projects allows lessons to be learnt and best practice to be established, thereby leading to a more efficient and effective delivery of projects. Moreover, it is possible to develop common approaches, systems, management tools and methodologies to drive forward performance improvements in terms of project delivery (according to schedule, budget and quality parameters). The PMO leverages knowledge and resources, including people, finance and supporting infrastructure so that a focused service and organizational capability is available to support projects from the early conceptual stage through to commissioning, project delivery and finally project closure, i.e. across the full project lifecycle.
Many organizations have implemented PMOs to varying levels of success and there are a range of different types of PMOs. Originally established in the IT (Information Technology) sector, PMOs have now been...