VIEWPOINTS

The Failure of Management Consultants to Leave Behind Sustainable PMOs – a Better Model is Needed

By Abid Mustafa

UAE

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Having worked in the (Middle East- North Africa) MENA region for a number of years, it is quite disheartening to encounter PMOs that suffer from acute identity crisis and are locked in endless battles with other departments to prove their worth.

What is interesting to discover is that the usual culprit behind PMO failures i.e. the lack of executive support, is not the primary cause. The common denominator behind the failings of such PMOs can be attributed to the role played by management consultants in setting up PMOs. There are three distinct areas where management consultants have played an instrumental role in creating PMOs, with major structural defects and no matter how hard one tries to fix it, the defects remain as an indelible stain.

1.       Sowing the seeds of executive confusion

There is a perpetual confusion in the minds of the executive team about the roles, responsibilities and competencies of the PMO. This is borne by the fact that in most cases, the management consultants hired to launch a company or a new business line, focussed exclusively on establishing a PMO that exhibited the characteristics of a reporting function and nothing more.  In this arrangement, the status from different projects and programmes are aggregated, rationalized and then presented to the executive team for decision making. Usually, the chief executive officer presides over the launch meeting, acts as the overall arbitrator and takes decisions on how to move the launch forward. Hence, the executive team performs well as long as the company is in launch mode, but any departure from this model and the frailty of the PMO is swiftly exposed.

Many executives find themselves unable to step into the shoes of the project sponsor (previously performed by the CEO as the sponsor of launching the business) and take important decisions about projects under their stewardship. Furthermore, very few executives possess sound ideas about how a centralized PMO should function in a post launch environment. Therefore, it is only logical to find executive support lacking as the PMO transitions into its post launch life.

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About the Author Abid Mustafa Author Abid Mustafa is a seasoned professional with 18 years' experience in the IT and Telecommunications industry, specializing in enhancing corporate performance through the establishment and operation of executive PMOs and delivering tangible benefits through the management of complex transformation programs and projects. Currently, he is working as a director of corporate programs for a leading telecoms operator in the MENA region.  Mr. Mustafa is currently based in Dubai and can be contacted at corporatethinking@hotmail.com.