By Barry RODGERS
ESC Lille Graduate School of Management

Editor’s note:  This paper was recently awarded 1st prize in the Student Papers competition at Happy Projects ’08. the annual international project management conference in Vienna, Austria during 29-30 May 2008 organized by ROLAND GAREAIS CONSULTING and PROJEKTMANAGEMENT GROUP at the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration.  The paper is reprinted here with permission of the author and PROJECTMANAGEMENT GROUP.

ABSTRACT

It can be difficult in organisations to sell the value of implementing a project management office (PMO) to senior management.  The benefits of a PMO must be quantifiable in order to prove its value to the organisation and the organisation goals, and to avoid the misconception that the PMO is just another unnecessary and costly layer of bureaucracy.  A PMO, in it’s functions as a repository of project historical data, as a support tool to project managers and as a neutral arbiter setting common standards, can be shown to have a positive effect by aiding accurate project cost estimation and thus cost / benefit.  In the example of an I.T. company choosing between several mutually exclusive development projects for investment, the value of the PMO input can be identified by comparing the same projects presented to the management team for selection as based on PMO input and standards and as based on project team standalone figures.  The company that fully utilises a PMO in this way can expect to realise a real quantifiable value to their business by choosing the right projects based on accurate analysis using common standards and criteria.

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