What is a PMO?
A Project Management Office (PMO) is like the backbone of a successful organisation. It helps plan, manage and execute projects in a structured manner. But how do you know if your PMO is performing at its best? How mature are you in terms of project and portfolio management? That's where measuring your PMO maturity comes in.
What is a mature PMO?
PMO maturity refers to the level of effectiveness and efficiency of your PMO. It is about the extent to which your PMO is able to manage projects efficiently and contribute to your organisation's overall strategy. Higher maturity means better performance and more added value from your projects in the organisation. In addition, a mature PMO process will also lead to efficient use of internal resources in the organisation, as well as outsourcing.
Why is measuring PMO maturity important?
Measuring PMO maturity helps you understand the strengths and weaknesses of your PMO. It allows you to identify where improvements are needed and where you can build on successes. It also ensures that your PMO keeps pace with changing needs and grows with your organisation. Today, we live in a rapidly changing world that expects an agile PMO operation, not a rigid or unwieldy structure.
Time for a little test. How would you see yourself dealing as an organisation today with the project portfolio?
How do you measure PMO maturity?
There are several methods to measure the maturity of your PMO. Stanwick measures PMO maturity based on 6 dimensions:
- Governance structure: How is your PMO organised and how well does it fit your organisation? What are the consultative bodies and how are they connected (tiered accountability)?
- Processes and procedures: How structured and efficient are your project management processes? Do we use simple templates and are these known?
- People and competences: Does your team have the right skills and experience to complete projects successfully? More info around Project management training?
- Tools and technology: Are you using the right tools to manage projects and share information? More info on PMO dashboard
- Stakeholder management and engagement: To what extent are stakeholders involved and informed? PMO goes through the entire organisation and thus has a lot of internal and external stakeholders.
- Adding value: How does your PMO contribute to achieving business objectives? For example, we see a trend towards faster (turnaround times) and qualitative project execution.
By assessing and scoring these dimensions, you can establish the maturity of your PMO and identify where improvements are needed.
What is the Stanwick approach to PMO maturity?
Within Stanwick, we have a PMO assessment tool that identifies improvement potential based on different dimensions. After the diagnosis phase, we draw up an improvement roadmap with a core team to evolve towards project excellence.
Conclusion
Measuring PMO maturity is a valuable process that helps you improve the effectiveness and efficiency of your PMO. It enables you to grow and evolve in line with your organisation's needs. If you long for better project results and a more strategic role for your PMO, start measuring maturity today!
Contact us for an open dialogue .
In the meantime, listen to our Stanwick Podcast on project management in practice.
Jeroen Van den Hove
