The Role of the PMO in Advancing Project Managers' skills to Sustain Organizational Value

(By Waffa Karkukly, PhD, PMP, ACP, CMP)

Abstract:

Project Management Offices (PMOs) have proved their importance and significance in

organizations especially in project-based organizations in terms of advancing project delivery

and improving project management standardization. There are higher expectations of PMOs in

terms of strategy execution through portfolio management and alignment with organizational

change management. When speaking of PMO functions, project portfolio management is at the

top of the list of PMO functions, then project delivery, followed by project methodology, project

reporting, and finally in that long list project/ program managers (PMs) development. The (PMs)

development function does not attract a prominent attention in the listing of PMOs functions as

other functions do. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to first, highlight the role of the PMO in

advancing (PMs) skills. Second, to list the benefits organizations achieve as a result on PMs'

skills advancement.

Keywords:

Project Management, Project Manager, Program Manager, PMs, PMO, benefits, Sustainability

Introduction:

A project management office (PMO) is an organizational body or entity assigned various

responsibilities related to the centralized and coordinated management of those projects under its

domain. The responsibilities of a PMO can range from providing project management support

functions to actually being responsible for the direct management of a project (PMI 2008).

PMOs existed initially as a means of collecting and distributing project management practices

and project knowledge throughout an organization. While the success rate of Y2K transitions

created the initial opportunity, many organizations continued with PMOs and extended their

mandate and increased their activities to include analysis, communication, and decision-making

support (Desouza and Evaristo 2006).

The project management office acts as the guardian of the project management intellectual

property. Other organizations established PMOs initially to cut costs, but then they evolved into

organizations to manage a single large project, provide guidance, methodologies, tools and

techniques, and (most recently) become centers of excellence that manage groups of projects

(Kerzner 2004).

The PMO is a critical organizational entity that adopts a variety of roles and structures but which

should focus on adding value to an organization and its customers to achieve the desired

organizational performance (Karkukly, 2011).

PM solutions report for 2014 identified top five PMO priorities and top five PMO challenges.

The number one priority was implementing resource planning and forecasting, while one of the

top five challenges was inadequate resource management and capacity (Pmsolutions/state-ofthe-pmo-2014-research-report-final). The report provides the statistics of top priorities and top

challenges, but does not suggest improvements that organizations need to embrace to achieve

these priorities and address these challenges.

Overall views on project management resource inadequacy are not being discussed, nor the

capacity planning. While organizations struggle to allocate staff and require processes for

forecasting, they are overlooking the first step and that is the evaluation of their human resource

(HR) assets (i.e. employees' skills). To achieve success in evaluating (PMs) skills,

organizations need to look at various areas: project complexity in terms of size, money, scope

complexity, etc. Resource competency levels, resource interest and progression and finally

match the right skill to the right project. Just having extra resources to throw in on projects is

not the solution. In some organizations, demand management and capacity planning show

immaturity in managing project resources. While some resources are over allocated, others

would be hardly allocated. The imbalance is due to the lack of assessment of number of projects

to resources. Second, would be matching the right resource skill set to the right type of project.

Many PMOs are guilty of neglecting the PMs' development function and turning it into a pool

of resources without paying attention to leveraging that function for organizational benefit.

Some PMOs are guilty with one or more of the following: too many templates, no time allocated

for training, too many departmental/ administrate meetings, working on the same type of projects,

staff are stuck in their level and no progression. These PMOs need to take active steps towards

improvement and plan to operate differently to focus on their people side.

The role of the PMO in advancing PMs' skills :

The (PMs) development function should be split into two clear functions: Training and development, and assessment and utilization. The overall goal of training and development is to encourage continues development and improvement in the core skills and competencies of project managers and PMO staff to achieve a high performance, and a project management career path. PMO's role is to build a career path for project and program managers by defining the competence profiles at different levels. Further, determine how to use them to predict the performance of project and program managers in their annual appraisals. The overall goal of the assessment and utilization is to staff projects with the right skill sets to position these project managers for success and ensure the training and development that they get allow them to get hands-on experience that matches their progression for a career path. PMO's role is to ensure as well full allocation and utilization, utilizing the right skill and allocating the resources appropriately to ensure supply and demand balance (i.e. not overallocating some project managers, or under-allocating others). In some organizations, project managers are contracted to work as consultants for specific projects, and they are expected to have the required industry standards and maybe the hiring organization's standards. Hence, investing in project manager training may not be required. For those organizations that have full-time project managers on staff, investing in their project managers' professional development is a feature that is looked upon quite positively when project managers make career moves. In some organizations, the PMO that is responsible for training, providing a career path, and bridging any skill gaps for all project staff, has the authority to perform these activities. When the PMO has the authority and the required funding to develop programs tailored to project managers' career paths, the PMO's level of authority correlates with how much of an influence it has over the education, mentoring, and guidance of project management within an organization. Developing PMO staff skills Full assessments of all PMO staff need to take place to determine the performance of each individual and skillset gaps across the same level and across various levels. To achieve this assessment, an organization needs to take an inventory of current staff skillsets (along with staff aspirations), looking for evidence of staff past performance and professional development and assess if the staff has been delivering as expected against the role expectations and relevant to the PMO roadmap requirements. Second, there needs to be validation whether the number of staff supporting the PMO is sufficient and whether the skillsets available are diverse enough to address the different types of projects. The result of this assessment is rewarding performing staff and taking corrective action with those who are not performing. The assessment will result in defining the job family for project managers and PMO staff as well as highlighting the career path progression. Employee satisfaction is an area that requires frequent assessment. Neglecting to do so will risk staff turnover and the stability of the performing employees in the PMO. Sustaining PMO staff skills There are three parts to sustaining project managers' skills. This process starts after an assessment of a project manager's skillset takes place to understand the type of skill training, on the-job training, and career path growth (karkukly, 2015).

The first part of an action plan allows project managers to train at the basic level (organization methodology and process). By starting all levels of manager training with the core basics, project managers become grounded with the required methods and procedures that their organization considers critical for the successful delivery of a project. Specialized training for the various levels of project management is essential to expand their skills, develop their knowledge, and keep them challenged for the next level of responsibility.

The second part of an action plan is to have a career path for the PMs to increase their competencies, which will help ensure they progress to more senior project management roles. This crucial step can be achieved through working with the HR business unit and the PMO to set the career levels, performance criteria, and so forth for all project managers.

The third part of an action plan provides diversity in their assignments and work on projects that vary in size, type, and complexity, sharpening their skills across subject areas and business functions. This gives the PMO the opportunity to use the project managers' experience and skillset to the fullest extent.

Organizational benefits

Organizations spend time and money on hiring, retaining and advancing PMs. Therefore,

measuring benefits both financial and non-financial are crucial for organizations to remain

aligned with their goals and objectives. There are three clear benefits and they are summarized

into:

Financial benefits

Achieve cost savings through retention vs. hiring

Obtain ROI of training and professional development

Improving PMs' skills improve project delivery cost

Saving on recruiting fees spent by organizations' hiring managers

Morale benefits

Improve retention and improve performance

Create a positive culture encouraging new ideas and contribution

Improve employee satisfaction rate and hence their productivity

Inspire one another through positive, helping attitude

Organizational competitive advantage benefits

Become the employer of choice

Sustain reputation in the hiring market

Retain business and technology knowledge

Conclusions

This paper summarizes the role of the PMO in advancing (PMs) skills and lists the benefits

organizations achieve as a result on PMs' skills advancement. read and summarize this case study carefully and give the answer of these following questions 1.What is the role of the PMO in organizations? (quote and support your answer from credible sources)

2.What is the role of the PMO specifically in training and developing project managers skills per the article?

3.The article lists three benefits to training project managers (Financial, Morale, organization competitiveness), add two more benefits and explain why you deem them important.

4.Align the role of the project manager per the article to the PMI talent triangle