Project Management Office in times of crisis

Companies should follow the steps taken by the government and implement measures to mitigate the consequences of adverse situations and even ensure that existing resources are allocated responsibly. To do this, companies can use a Project Management Office (PMO), which is an organizational structure - external or internal to the company - responsible for harmonizing project and portfolio management processes and activities across the organization.

In fact, the PMO departments are critical to supporting the coaching process of project managers, and to defining a governance model and an operating model that enables organizations to implement projects efficiently while sharing their increasingly limited resources.

There are three types of PMOs to help an organization successfully implement this measure – Supportive, Controlling, and Directive. The Supportive PMO supports projects by providing everything needed to implement a project, such as templates, best practices, training, access to information, management software, processes, and methodologies. The Controlling PMO does not take full control of tasks but it is responsible for providing the organization with templates, processes, and reports. Finally, the Directive PMO is responsible for managing, supporting, and controlling projects, in accordance with the templates, procedures, and requirements in the reports.

When a PMO is established in an organization, one of the first visible effects is a reduction in failures during and after the project, as a team of experienced certified PMPs is responsible for minimizing failures. In addition to this effect, we can also mention greater optimization of costs and resource management and allocation, greater control and transparency of delivery times and costs, improvement and professionalization of communication channels, accuracy and precision in project documentation, and optimized training for each project user. 

As it is clear, PMOs are particularly useful to organizations in times of crisis, as they make it possible to manage existing projects in a coordinated manner, and ultimately succeed.