The role of the PMO in a performance-driven portfolio management - Alexandre Rodrigues

Over the last two decades, PMOs came to stay in most organizations, as they manage their business based on projects as the key driver of both innovation and organizational transformation.  The types of PMOs and the roles they perform may vary, taking different forms ranging from specialized outsourced services (PMO as a service) to well established internal organizational units.  Whatever the PMO model adopted and the industry setting, organizations are faced with a reality where their business performance is heavily reliant on the success of their on-going portfolio of projects and programs.  In turn, the success of projects and programs is primarily an outcome of effective management at all levels in the portfolio. 

We live in an era where organizations are shifting their business decision-making processes to become predominantly data and insight-driven, a trend that started before and extends well beyond the marketing arena.  In fact, since its inception, sound project management science and practice has always been based on the use of objective data to inform decision-making, primarily based on the Earned Value Management (EVM), an approach that has often found resistance due to both lack of organizational management maturity and difficulty in having access to reliable project performance data in real time and with quality.  Nowadays, the scenario has evolved where organizations have embarked in digital transformation, making the use of data and data-insights easier, central to decision-making, and embedded in the organizational culture.  This scenario creates the conditions and thus the opportunity for PMOs to fulfill one of their most important roles that has often been hard to materialize: to provide the organization with project, program, and portfolio reliable performance data, allowing decision-makers at all levels to develop insights and undertake smarter decisions, ranging from project teams, project managers, program managers, product and asset managers, portfolio managers and top management.  This presentation discusses the opportunities for PMOs to operate as enablers of a performance-driven portfolio management model in the organizations, leveraging on the current trend of digital transformation and insight-driven organizations (IDOs).