The project management office (PMO) presents one of the most important activities in management that focuses on providing directions, methodology, and training for project management. Furthermore, PMO is a critical factor in achieving project success as it improves the projects’ effectiveness through the active transfer of knowledge and experience and providing support for the project and management. However, the key characteristics of a successful PMO are different from the key characteristics of a project’s success.
PMO’s functions focus on defining and maintaining standards for project management, which means that it targets improvements in the project management process. According to Kerzner (2018), PMO maintains effective project management processes, develops tools to improve project manager’s activities, stores and manages important information, and performs training for employees to improve customers’ experience. Therefore, key characteristics of a successful PMO focus on standardization, employees’ skills and dedication, and efficiency of information processing.
Therefore, key characteristics of a successful PMO include strong leadership that supports employees’ engagement and dedication to the organizational mission and alignment of PMO function with organizational goals. Furthermore, strong leadership and authority are required for an operative decision-making process and reasonable proactive proposals for problem-solving. Lastly, the success of PMO largely depends on the experience and skills of the personnel as they ensure effectiveness and allow correspondence of project management processes with relevant trends in business and technologies.
Therefore, hiring an experienced project manager for establishing PMO is more beneficial for the project than hiring an external consulting company, as the individual experience of the personnel presents an important success factor for PMO. Furthermore, the activities of external consulting companies in PMO can potentially lack alignment with organization goals. Thus, to ensure the successful use of knowledge and experience in PMO with the addition of professional expertise, hiring an experienced project manager is better than hiring an external consulting company.
Reference
Kerzner, H. (2018). Project management best practices: Achieving global excellence (4th ed.). Wiley.