S4E88: How to get the best out of your PMO with Lindsay Scott & Eileen Roden

In this week’s pod we welcomed Lindsay Scott and Eileen Roden from the House of PMO to talk about how to get the best out of your PMO teams.

Lindsay has a published author, having edited the Handbook of People in Project Management and published the PMO Competency Framework. She has experience as a PMO Manager and careers advisor.

Eileen is a Consulting Director Trainer and Coach at the House of PMO. She has written the PMO Competency Framework and the P3O Best Management Practice documents.

The main topics we discussed on the podcast were as follows:

·  A PMO exists to enable decision making, assist on project delivery and create an ecosystem for projects to thrive

·  There are different definitions of what a PMO is. Ultimately it depends on the organisation structure. Sometimes you will need to explain how projects differ from Business as Usual (BAU)

·  Some organisations are just focusing on Project Controls rather than PMO which is broader

·  PMO’s are effectively facilitators. They can support with having the wider view of all projects within an organisation

·  PMO’s need to match the needs of the business. Sometimes the quality of outputs will deteriorate over time if the organisation structure changes frequently

·  It is difficult to promote best practice across the industry because of the different organisation set-ups

·  Many organisations are seeking to demonstrate PMO performance through KPIs.

·   Project Managers will deliver projects, PMO’s will enable better controls to review the project status

·   People are the key driver for getting the best out of PMO’s

·  Data analytics will have a huge impact on the industry, however people skills are the most important skillset for effective PMO’s

·  PMO will act as a translator between data analytics and Project Managements

·  The main evolution in PMO skillsets over the past 30 years has been in technology. In the last five years the key theme is managing agile projects

·  There are no consistent metrics across the industry to measure project success

·  There is no such thing as best practice. It should be re-branded as good local practice!

·  There is a debate between whether a PMO team should be permanent in order to transfer good practice and learning within an organisation vs whether they should be temporary to align with the finite nature of projects

Here are links to some of the topics that were discussed:

House of PMO: https://houseofpmo.com/

PMO Competency Framework: https://houseofpmo.com/competency-framework/

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Join us next week where we’re joined by Elizabeth Harrin to talk about effective stakeholder engagement and managing multiple projects.

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Stay safe, be disruptive and have fun doing it!

Dale and Val

This episode is sponsored by PlanAcademy.com, JustDo.com, and InEight.com.