From the course: Setting Up a PMO

4 phases of PMO setup: Roadmap

From the course: Setting Up a PMO

Start my 1-month free trial

4 phases of PMO setup: Roadmap

“

- Every journey has its phases, and breaking up a journey in parts provides a sense of accomplishment as you make your way through it. It also helps us achieve something that at the beginning seems colossal. So, I think it's best to break up the monumental journey of your PMO setup into four phases. Phase one, PMO Current State. Phase two, PMO Future State. Phase three, PMO Rollout. And Phase four, PMO Continuous Improvement. Phase one is PMO Current State. It's really about determining what sort of a PMO you have in place today, what its challenges are, and why a PMO is actually required. And even more, you have to put your organization under the lens and assess how ready it is to have a PMO in place. It means taking a deeper look at its processes, collaboration, business goals, and decision-making maturity. This of course, is by having meaningful conversations with the right stakeholders, doing a bit more digging on your own, and seeing what similar organizations have done. Based on your findings, are you able to set up a mature PMO right off the bat? Or maybe you'll need to set up an elementary level PMO and plan its maturity over time. Next up is phase two, PMO Future State. In this phase, you're writing to find the responsibilities of your PMO, tackling quick wins, and drafting the timelines for the PMO setup. This involves carving out the scope of the PMO in terms of its role, targeting business areas, geographic locations, and the natures of its projects. It doesn't hurt at this stage to use your negotiation chops to get this as close as possible to the vision you have for the PMO. Even if its evolution is expected in future phases. You also need to come up with a strong business case for your PMO. Is your PMO improving production timelines? Or is it enhancing revenue? Or reducing costs? Include relevant success metrics along with the complete PMO setup plan, and key milestones. Get the business case approved by your leadership and you're off to the next phase. Moving on to phase three, PMO Rollout. It's all about launching the pilot, learning from it, and then rolling out the PMO. This is where the real action happens. Run the pilot first, and after it's done, don't hesitate to take away any learnings from it to include in the execution of later phases. After the pilot, move on to the full launce of the PMO according to the roadmap you created in phase two. Was your roadmap based on rolling out the PMO to a specific department first? Or a specific country or region? Did it involve launching just a subset of its core services, or the entire ensemble? Once you've determined this, proceed to implement the rollout accordingly. The last phase is phase four, PMO Continuous Improvement, which is where the PMO is growing and staying relevant, often by repeating phases one through three on a regular basis. This involves monitoring your metrics and getting qualitative feedback from the stakeholders periodically. Share your findings with the people whose lives you're impacting through your PMO. These could be your stakeholders in the department your PMO influences, or key leadership in the region your PMO serves. Publicize early success. Put up posters next to elevators. Send it through the company monthly newsletter. Get someone else to sing your praises. You get the point. Support your team and make sure they're set up to do well. Then, look at the opportunity to move on to the next step in your PMO's evolution. So, there you have it, the four phases involved in the setup of a PMO. I am providing a list of key activities, arranged by each phase in the exercise files. Think about each as you're thinking through and planning your PMO setup.

Contents