Episode 556: Rethinking the PMO: Identity, Design & What's Next

So here is what we are going to do.

Like I said, we have four discussion threads around the PMO, and we're starting with the uncomfortable questions beneath it all.

Uh, the most uncomfortable question that we really have for today here, does the PMO still deserve to exist? So Sarah, here is your own question.

[laughs]

Are PMOs dying? Are they dying?

Yeah, so this was one of my favorite, uh, issues to write.

You know, if you ask Reddit, PMOs are gonna be gone in six months.

Like, uh-

[laughs]

... people are, like, clinical anxiety over this.

Um, I'm more optimistic, uh, but with a couple of caveats.

So, um, if you think about a PMO as many people do, so a centralized function, um, responsible for governance, reporting, uh, project management excellence, often have PMs that report through it.

Um, you know, I think regulated industries will probably continue to have a PMO in that form.

Um, and I think, though, that most PMOs are gonna look really different, especially as AI technology advances.

Um, I think one of the things to keep in mind about PMOs as they are currently built is that they're built on a principle of standardization.

What I mean by that is that, you know, in order to get that lovely portfolio-level roll-up reporting, every PM has to fill out basically a standardized status report.

In order to get that, that comfort level that every project is doing due diligence, they all have to follow the same project life cycle gates, right?

Mm-hmm.

The problem is that, you know, especially the PMBOK guide, as it's developing, the profession as it's developing, we tell people all the time, "You should tailor your communications to your stakeholders.

You should tailor your project approach to the needs of that project." But if we're all spending hours filling out that standard status report that may or may not be very applicable to your project, who has time and energy to do that, right? And so what standardization does is it makes current PMO functions easier, and but it brings every project to sort of the law of averages.

Uh, projects that may not be, uh, managed with as much discipline get raised to a certain ceiling.

Mm-hmm.

But project managers who are really good at tailoring and customizing nuanced stakeholder engagement, their status reports get flattened to the average too.

Projects that are really high risk get the exact same air time as projects that are lower risk.

What AI does is it's going to create a world where that standardization is no longer as necessary, and when it is, it's easier to produce.