Assignment One Engm117

Table of Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................2
What is project management office?............................................................................................................2
Why do we need project management office?.............................................................................................2
Project management office roles within its strands......................................................................................3
Project governance..................................................................................................................................3
Business case...........................................................................................................................................4
Programme management.........................................................................................................................4
Portfolio management..............................................................................................................................4
Project delivery method...........................................................................................................................5
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................6
References...................................................................................................................................................7
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Introduction
Every organization or company needs to incorporate the project management office (PMO)
within their operational protocols, due to the benefits that it brings forth. The major benefit that
they bring to the tale within an organization is that they ensure proper management of all projects
that passes through the organization or company. Having understood the benefit that come from
the PMO, it is therefore important to evaluate the roles of the project management office plays
with the view of achieving the identified benefit. In this light, this write up tend to critically
examine the available scholarly thoughts on the roles of PMO with regards to the various
sections present in the department within a company or an organization. This will enable us to
have a proper understanding of what the project management office stands for, and the possible
demerits that may occur if it is not available within an organization, especially the project
development organizations.
What is project management office?

Kerzner, H. (2009), defined project management office as a separate section within an
organization that handles the project implementation process, utilizing suitable methodologies by
institutionalizing the adopted project management process. In this regard, the project
management office stands as an administrator for all the projects being undertaken within an
organization or company. However, for a functional PMO, a company needs to ensure that this
department is well structured to perform all the necessary tasks required of them (Crawford,
2010). I believe this was why Santos & Varajão, 2015 defined the PMO as the unit within an
organization that has a unique responsibility of designing and maintaining the methods,
practices, and tools needed in carrying out a project from the beginning to the close out stage.
Through these definitions and more other scholarly definitions, it is safe to establish the fact that
the project management office is very important to every organization or company either based
in project development or product manufacturing, because both are making a product out to the
users/consumers to utilize.
Why do we need project management office?

As time goes by, there is an increase in the number of complex projects due to the wider range of
human imagination and innovations, therefore the need to develop a more coordinated project
management system arose, so as to meet up with the fast moving train of innovations and
imaginations (Dai & Wells, 2004). This is why the major call for the project management office
became louder than before, the popularity became resounding and most company and
organizations came to the realization of the need for a PMO. For instance, in a research
conducted by Crawford (2001), Sandish company realized that 16% of project conducted within
the company was successful, thereafter in about 4 years later, it was discovered that the project
success level has increased to 26%, owing to the fact that the company adopted the project
management procedures and methods offered by the project management office within that
period more effectively. Furthermore, it was recorded that within the year 2000 and 2010, there
has been an increase of about 36% in the number of companies and organizations that is adopting
the PMO (Abd Ghani, 2014). By this, we can conclude that there is a very significant need of the
project management office within all organization and companies for effective project delivery.
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However, according to Abd Ghani (2014), there are types of project management offices defined
by functions. Firstly, there is departmental PMO whereby project related services are being
provided through this type of PMO to support the business services unit. This type of PMOs is
found in the IT, consulting and communication companies. Furthermore, Abd Ghani stated that
we have project support and control PMOs, where the entire available project within such
organization are being managed and supported by the PMO. This is mostly found in the
government and the manufacturing companies. Furthermore, we also have Enterprise PMOs,
which are the high level PMOs. They provide the alignment of the available project and
programs to the organizational corporate strategy, ensuring proper governance, engaging in
portfolio management so that they will be in accordance with the organizational values and
strategies. Also there is Center of excellence PMOs that provides the organization or company
with the standard, methods and tools to help the project managers in a successful project
delivery. Having identified the available types of PMOs according to Abd Ghani (2014), all the
organizational PMO will fall in to one of the above listed categories using the functional
measurement.
Project management office roles within its strands

After understanding the meaning, importance and the types of the project management office
available, then it is important to understand their roles within the workspace. The following
section examines the roles of the project management office, considering the relationship with
other strands of offices attached to it.
Project governance
With the definition from Tsaturyan, & Müller, (2015) project governance is referred to as that
entity within a project based organization that sees to the strategic management and control of
roles, tasks, activities that is available in a project management system of an organization. This
was supported by Renz P. S. (2007), where he define the role of a project governance as the
office that makes sure that all organizational values and percepts are adequately guiding the
project management process. Therefore, in explaining the relationship between the project
management office and the project government, this is not farfetched. Being the harm that
controls all the affairs of project related role, the project governance can be regarded as the
founder of the project management office (Aubry et al, 2010). Therefore, being the initiator of
the PMO, the project governance has the capability to check all the activities handled by the
PMO in ensuring that they are in accordance the organizational guidelines and that they will
bring significant benefits to the organization.
Notwithstanding, Freeman (2001) saw a setback that has not been attended to within the project
management office tasks, whereby, he expressed that the PMO capacities are significant to profit
the interest of the internal stakeholders, disregarding the external partners in project
management. In such manner, he proposed that, there ought to be endeavors in considering the
external partners outside the organization like the clients, user, project workers, etc, the very way
that the internal partners (I. e top managerial staff, financial backers, workers, and so forth) are
been considered in policy-making, so that there will be an evened out ground and genuine
connection between them. In this regard, organizations need to take note of this and ensure
necessary changes to prevent conflict.
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Business case
According to Mustapha C. (2009), a business case was defined as the strategy for understanding
the potential values that a particular project carries. In other word, the business case outlines the
procedures with which a project is going to take in form of a prototype, which will help the
organizational stakeholders to affirm that such project is in accordance the values and goals of
the organization or company. Hobbs, B. & Aubry, M., (2007), believes that a business case
answers about three pertinent questions that can help in decision making. These questions
include; why are we executing the project? What will be the project cost? What are the
corresponding business values achievable in executing this project?. Hobbs and Aubry therefore,
stated that the project management office also contribute in one way or the other, to the decision
making chain in an organization, through the provision of the business case to the stakeholders.
To support this, Desmond (2015) stated that the PMO has the capability of performing a directive
role within an organization, ensuring that the right decisions are being made on every project
involved, for quality delivery. Maritato (2012) also specified the relationship between the project
management office and business case, by concluding that the PMO highlights the potential
values with which a particular project is set to bring to the stakeholders, giving them the option
of accepting or rejecting it. Therefore, basically, the business case that is always conducted by
the PMO is useful for the stakeholders to ensure the right decisions are made.
Programme management
Programme management has been defined as a set of project with common goal, implemented
together by a common stakeholders or project team (Hill G. M., 2004). In this regard, a program
is a more complex project that involves series of project-like activities that are aimed at
achieving a common goal. Furthermore, Milosevic et al, (2007) in his own opinion, defined a
programme management as the group of project being implemented together at the same time, so
that each section of the program will be effectively produced. Looking at the two definitions, we
deduce that a program is a more complex project with a wider range of management, most of the
time carried out internationally or between one government and the other. Example of a
programme is when a nonprofit organization from UK travels to Somalia for a humanitarian
mission to give food and drugs to the war affected citizens.
In this regard, the relationship between the project management office and the programme
management is that the PMO performs the role of a controller, whereby it tend to control all the
activities within the program to ensure total compliance with the given standard and policies
(Hill G., 2004). Most of the time for a programme management, the PMO selects the project
team that will carry out some specific activities, so that such activities will not be wrongly
carried out. For instance, the PMO will ensure that a competent project manger handles the
project team for effective project implementation, otherwise, such program, being a complex and
large scale project may result into failure, which will not be a good one on the curriculum vitae
of the organization or company.
Portfolio management
In recent times, especially in the last two decades, there has been series of global financial
recessions that has cost some major industries a lot of revenues, especially the financial sectors
of the world. This in turn prompt most companies and organizations to develop a more reliable
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and organized system (Oliver Wyman Report, 2015). This was the more reason why most of the
industries thought of having portfolios within each organization, which will coordinate
segmented activities to detail and report to the overall administration. A portfolio is thereby
defined as the breaking down of activities within an organization into the simplest units, to
enhance detail management (Wrike, 2021). For instance, a particular project team on a current
project within an organization is a portfolio as far as they are still on the project. Such portfolio is
being led by the project manager, to ensure that the project outcome meet up with the
requirements, after which the team may be resolved.
In this regard, being the simplest unit in a project management network, a portfolio is therefore
meant to be coordinated by a project management office, whereby during an ongoing project, the
various portfolios will be under the PMO reporting activities to them, just as the PMO is under
the project governance (Holicky, 2017). According to Kendall & Rollins (2003), the
development of portfolios has the capability of ensuring that their little or no risk factor during a
project and this will be ensured by the project management office through constant checks and
balances on each portfolio to ensure compliance with the standard available. Therefore, the
project management office performs the role of a director or an administrator to each portfolio
within their jurisdiction. In summary, portfolio management is the role of a PMO, to coordinate
and prevent high risk index.
Project delivery method
According to Dai & Wells (2004), the project delivery method encompasses all the project
management stages involved in delivering the required project objectives to the client. These
stages may involve project initiation, definition of scope, team selection, serial delivery of
project management activities and rounding up (TCRP, 2008). In other word, the project delivery
method is the channel within which a particular project is being implemented from the beginning
to the eng. Project delivery method was also defined as the technique adopted by a project team
in executing a particular project, these techniques can come in several ways such as the
traditional techniques of project delivery, the Agile method/techniques, it can also be through a
disruptive technology method (Kerzner, H., 2009). Therefore, the project delivery method is
summarily the approach to achieving a successful project implementation.
By this, according to (Desouza & Evaristo, 2006) the relationship between the project
management office and the project delivery method is that, the PMO ensures that the best
method is been chosen for a particular project after examining its characteristics, and therefore
ensure that all the activities within the selected procedure or methods are followed to detail for
project success. This implies that the PMO coordinates the selection and the management of the
best technique suitable for a particular project being carried out within an organization or a
company. Furthermore, According to Pekka P, (2002), there are some of the projects that will
require partnership with other groups, individuals, or the government for it implementation and
delivery process. These kinds of project are always high level, and the delivery process comes in
different ways which includes; design – bid and build (DBB), construction management at risk
(CMAR), public private partnership (PPP), integrated project delivery (IPD) and soon. In this
regard, the PMO ensures that the best partnership deal selected for a particular project and
ensures that the partners kept to the objectives of the deal. Therefore, the PMO can also stand as
an intermediary between the organization and the involved partners for an itch free partnership.
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After the critical evaluation of various roles of a project management office within an
organization or company, as far as the various strands relating to it is concerned, it is obvious that
this office is very important to the project management system. It shoulders a lot of
responsibilities that may result in project failure if not properly done. Therefore, it is important
for all companies or organizations especially the project oriented organizations, to ensure
adequate support to this section within their companies, so that they will be able to perform to
the optimum, all the required task to ensure quality and successful project.
Conclusion
This write up has been able to critically examine the definitions of project management office,
with respect to the series of schools of thoughts available. Also, the types of PMOs available
were also analyzed within the report. Thereafter, the roles of the project management office were
critically examined through the various sections related to the PMO. Its roles in relationship with
the project governance were examined where it was revealed that the project governance is the
section of an organization that established the PMO. In this regard, all activities within the PMO
are meant to be relayed to the project governance team. Furthermore, the role of the PMO in
relation with the business case was also analyzed, whereby it was discovered that the project
management office are saddled with the responsibility of developing the business case of projects
and submit to the project stakeholders for accurate decisions. By this, the PMO is also involved
in projects decision making. Also, the role of the PMO as involving the programme management
was also examined, and it was discovered that the project management office basically
coordinates the programme management for efficient delivery of each units of project within a
program.
Furthermore, the issue of portfolio management was also linked to the role of a PMO, where it
was discovered that the project management office handles each portfolios available within a
project for a successful outputs. An example of a portfolio is the agreement between a project
team and an external contractor, this is mean to be coordinated and administered by a PMO.
Furthermore, the relationship between the PMO and the project delivery methods was also
analyzed. It was therefore discovered that, the project management office plays the role of an
administrator, in which they have the responsibility of ensuring that the best method/technique
for project management is being utilized for a particular project, after examining the peculiar
characteristics of such project. In this regard, the roles of a project management office within an
organization or a company cannot be over emphasized, they are the pillar of success for all
projects carried out in a company, especially project based companies therefore, it is important
for scholar to shed more lights at the necessity of the PMO within organizations, so that there
will be a wider awareness for this section.
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References
Abd Ghani, 2014. ‘A Framework to Establish a Project Management Office’. European Journal
of Business and Management. 6(9). Pp 19 – 26.
Aubry, M., Müller, R., Hobbs, B. & Blomquist, T., 2010. Project management offices in
transition. International Journal of Project Management. 28, 766–778.
Crawford, J. K., 2010. The Strategic Project Office: A Guide to Improving Organizational
Performance, Second Edition. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.
Dai, C. X. & Wells, W. G., 2004. An exploration of project management office features and their
relationship to project performance. International Journal of Project Management. 22 (7), 523–
532.
Desouza, K. C. &, Evaristo J. R., 2006. The Project management offices: A case of knowledge-
based archetypes. International Journal of Information Management. 26, 414–423.
Desouza, K. C. &, Evaristo J. R., 2006. The Project management offices: A case of knowledge-
based archetypes. International Journal of Information Management. 26, 414–423.
Freeman, R. E. (2001). ‘A stakeholder theory of the modern corporation’. Perspectives in
Business Ethics Sie, 3, page 144.
Hill, G., 2008. The Complete Project Management Office Handbook, 2nd ed. Auerbach
Publications, Boca Raton.
Holicky K. 2017. ‘What is the Difference between Project Management and Project Portfolio
Management?’ Blog. Retrieved from https://meisterplan.com/blog/difference-project-
management-project-portfolio-management/ on 29th April, 2021.
Kendall, G. I. & Rollins, S. C., 2003. Advanced project portfolio management and the PMO:
multiplying ROI at warp speed. Florida: J. Ross Publishing.
Kerzner, H., 2009. Project Management – A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling and
Controlling, 10th ed. John Wiley Sons Inc.
Maritato, M. (2012). Creating a PMO business case through a business analysis approach. Paper
presented at PMI® Global Congress 2012—North America, Vancouver, British Columbia,
Canada. Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute.
Milosevic et al, (2007). ‘A Study on Critical Success Factors for the Effective Program
Management in Multiple Project Environments in Indian Retail Construction’. Journal of Civil
Engineering and Environmental Technology. 1(6). Pp 49 – 53.
Mustapha C, (2009). Introduction to business case. Workshop on the Development of Business
Case Workshop on the Development of Business Case for the Implementation of CNS/ATM
Systems.
Oliver Wyman. 2015. ‘Managing complexity: The state of the financial services industry’. Oliver
Wyman.
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Pekka, Pakkala (2002). Innovative Project Delivery Methods for Infrastructure. Finnish Road
Enterprise. p. 120. ISBN 978-952-5408-05-8
Renz P. S. (2007). ‘Project Governance; Implementing Corporate Governance and Business
Ethics in Nonprofit Organizations’. Springer. Pp 1 – 20.
Santos, V. & Varajão, J., 2015. PMO as a Key Ingredient of Public Sector Projects’ Success -
Position Paper. Procedia Computer Science. 64, 1190–1199.
TCRP, 2008. ‘Evaluation of Project Delivery Methods; TransitCooperative Research Program’.
Ali Touran, Northeastern University, Boston, MA.
Tsaturyan, T. & Müller, R., 2015. Integration and governance of multiple project management
offices (PMOs) at large organizations. International Journal of Project Management. 33 (5),
1098–1110.
Wrike, 2021. ‘What is portfolio in project management?’ [Online] retrieved from
https://www.wrike.com/project-management-guide/faq/what-is-portfolio-in-project-management/
on 6th May, 2021.
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Table of Contents

What is project management office?

Why do we need project management office?

Project management office roles within its strands

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