Top 5 Practical Challenges for a PMO… that can be solved

Theory and practice tell a very different story. While the above struggles are complex, before you can tackle them, you need to solve what is at the root. We have identified 5 practical challenges commonly observed within real PMOs, that are at the base of more broader issues, where solving them leads to solving more complex problems. Let’s explore them:

1. Information Retrieval: Whether you are looking for documents, templates, tasks or meeting minutes,  it seems everyone has a challenge. It all starts with good intention, but then quickly falls apart. We have seen countless SharePoint sites, Google Drives, and Dropbox with a web of folders where finding something is not for the faint of heart. Anyone involved in a project, should be able to retrieve anything quickly and should always know where everything is. Always.
2. Active supporting of the delivery Teams: Many PMOs are simply providing guidance, but why is that? We argue if a PMO has full visibility and can identify issues and trends in advance, could and should help the project managers steer the initiatives into green territory. Many PMOs don’t have the required tools that provide that kind of quick identification and quick response to effectively support the team.
3. Silo approach: When multiple business units try to solve problems, the issue of Silos is ever present. Working in isolation leads to mis-alignments of strategic goals, duplication of effort and many other problems. The PMO should have full visibility of all initiatives in the funnel to be able to guarantee strategic alignment and resource optimization.
4. Repeatable processes: Delivering one project is simple enough, but delivering hundreds or more requires a different approach. To be able to scale, a PMO needs to implement a process that can be repeated over and over as well as some form of governance to ensure those critical processes are followed. The challenge is not to establish the process itself, the real challenge is to ensure the delivery teams can easily consult and follow those instructions.
5. Ensure accountability: Lastly, accountability. When problems arise, the fingers start pointing. The same goes for great achievements: you want to give credit where credit is due. Being able to review who made what call, can greatly improve the next projects. In project management, history is one of the most important thing to consider when taking on a project as you want to ensure to improve in past mistakes or simply emulate great success.

Now that we know the top 5 practical challenges, how do we map them against the more complex struggles described earlier? Let’s review the mapping table we compiled: