Virginia Flores
Program Management as a Competitive Advantage
2009 Spring 01 MET AD 646 - Program Management and Planning
Virginia Greiman
April 17, 2009
Abstract
“The Program Management Office (PMO) is the fastest growing concept in project management today and is the key to effective implementation of project management across the organization. To keep pace with customer expectations, competition, and economic conditions in the fast-paced global economy, organizations must do more using fewer resources” (Jainendrukumar, 2008). A PMO can fulfill any number of tasks, from increasing productivity through resource allocation to providing the needed visibility to scale back or cancel projects that are not tightly aligned with a company’s overall strategic goals. Whether set up as a project-focused PMO or an enterprise-focused PMO, PMOs should add value in seven areas: “Project support, project management process/methodology, training, centralized office for project managers, internal consulting and mentoring, project management software tools and portfolio management” (Santosus, 2003).
PMOs can also add value in other areas as well. Consider the following statistic; “according to a recent McKinsey & Company survey, 81% of global executives surveyed see technological innovation as a critical global trend but only 71% of their business counterparts, believe that innovation makes their companies more profitable” (The McKinsey Quarterly, 2005). This statistic reflects the continued struggle of IT to show tangible value to an organization’s bottom-line instead of constantly being viewed as peripheral to a company’s core business processes. Although companies who cultivate an environment in which innovation can thrive are substantially more successful in the long term; most companies continue to foster a risk adverse environment. This is shown by the fact that “majority of firms have unbalanced product portfolios in which less than 5% of products...