Project Management Office?
Does your organization have a project management office? Does it need
one? Does the one it has need changing? Now, as a senior project manager,
you will have the opportunity to be heard on the subject. You may
want to tackle the book The Advanced Project Management Office by Parvis
Rad and Ginger Levin and apply some of the appropriate tricks the
author talks about. Some of the best program-oriented companies in
the world use the PMO concept. The concept keeps IBM on the straight
and narrow, and it helped Federal Express turn around.
If you don’t want or can’t afford a PMO office, how about a project
management executive committee; an ad hoc group specializing in best
practices of project management and flowing these ideas through the
organization? The group can have a yearly conclave with an inspirational
speaker to rev up the troops and send them on their way for the
next year. A panel can present the findings of their research. Awards
and recognition can be given at the annual meeting. The meeting will
follow the same format as a marketing and sales meeting. To do the job
we have to do, we need to be pumped too. We need to be inspired and
need to take away new ideas from the conclave. And, probably most
important of all, we need to meet new project and program managers;
get to know their capabilities and personalities, and see their awards;
and see what it takes to make it to the top in this company and in
project management as a whole.