5 Things You May Not Have Known About PMOs

Project Management Offices

Corporations are crushing on PMOs.

PM Solutions just released their yearly report – The State of the Project Management Office and  according to their report, PMOs are delivering a 27% decrease in project failures to their organizations.

80% of companies in the report have a Project Management Office – that’s up from a 2000 study that revealed only 47% of companies had a PMO at that time.

For the 432 companies that participated in the report, there was a 45% increase in aligning the organization’s projects with their goals.

[…] PMO leaders are stepping up to the plate: …saving their organizations an average of US$186,000 per project and improving their alignment of projects with business objectives a whopping 53%.

One of the biggest challenges that Project Management Offices have faced is an organizations resistance to change – such as standardizing the way goals, tasks and projects are being planned and executed.

Could PMOs do more for their companies?

51% of CEOs were not prepared to adopt any new changes that the PMO wanted to implement.

Here are a few more interesting stats from the report:

  • PMOs are strategic resources within the organization and most of them report to a VP or higher
  • 80% of the 432 organizations that were surveyed globally already have a PMO in place
  • 85% of PMOs offer onsite classroom-based training and 52% rely on external trainers to teach those classes
  • PMOs have 31% improvement in customer satisfaction and 18% improvement in the productivity delivered

For more, check out The State of the Project Management Office 2014 report from PM Solutions.

Author:
Michael is an avid project controls blogger and is the Chief Learning Officer here at Plan Academy. Michael has taught 1000s professionals how to use project controls software like Primavera P6 over the past 10 years through his online courses and tutorials. Michael is a member of AACE, the Guild of Project Controls and holds his PMP certification from PMI.