The Drug Cabinet of PMO Services

A modern PMO offers services to the business – services that help the organisation to ultimately choose the right programmes and projects to deliver and to deliver those programmes and projects well.

Regardless of all the different types of PMOs that are out there – one thing is universally true about them – they’re all delivering what they do via services.

You might not call it that – you produce a report and send it round to the senior execs – but that’s what it is, you’re providing a service to those people.

As part of the Setting Up a PMO course, we cover the services offered by the PMO. In the Setting Up a PMO course that’s part of the roadmap we see to the right where the delivery framework is created, and rolled out.

When we talk about services from the PMO; they can vary from PMO to PMO; the most common ones tend to fall into these categories

When the courses are being taught about PMO services we focus on them first of all from the senior executive’s point of view.

The senior executive articulates a business problem they have – for example, “why are the projects from department X always incurring additional costs than were planned for”.

The PMOs role in response to this type of problem is to understand which type of service offering will help to find the answer.

The PMO Drug Cabinet

We go to the doctor with a list of symptoms, not turning up and asking for 30mg of a certain drug.

With the PMO, the drug cabinet is our service catalogue – the services we have available in different combinations – different quantities – some the lightest of touches, others a double-dose.

That’s how we should see the PMO and the ideal way to operate.

Not to insist that lessons learnt should always happen at the end of the project – or even that lessons learnt needs to be a part of our service offering anymore.

We ask questions, listen and seek to understand what the problems and challenges are – and then open that cabinet door to start the process of dispensing.

I’m sure you get the picture – and there are many more analogies to be had from medicine and the pharmacy!

Join us on a PMO training course this winter, dates now available for early 2020 too.