3 Problems You May Not Know You Have in Your PMO!

Identifying problems within your team or business isn’t always easy and the problem may not be obvious from the start. It isn’t uncommon in businesses that problems go unnoticed until it’s been around for a while or starts to cause severe damage. At that point, you and your colleagues may find yourselves scrambling to find a temporary solution to minimise the impact – firefighting! Or you may experience small problems that you manage and are used to dealing with, that could be solved if you had the right support or resources.

It is helpful to take a step back every now and then and take a look at the big picture of how the business operates and whether you and your PMO are working as effectively as you could?

As a training company, we hear about various problems delegates face in their own business and PMO and what solutions we can provide to help them.

Here are 3 common problems that you may not know you have in your PMO.

Lack of clarity about roles and responsibilities.

It is important to have a clear understanding of the roles and responsibilities of the PMO and other stakeholders involved in governance. This lack of clarity can lead to confusion, conflict, and delays.

Governance is important in projects, programmes, and portfolios for many reasons however roles and responsibilities is a key one. Ensuring resources are managed effectively, allocated, and responsibilities are met. A short-term fix for this issue would be a governance charter for example that outlines roles, responsibilities, and processes of governance.

However, to ensure a long-term fix is put in place making sure all colleagues gain the knowledge and understanding necessary to design, implement, and operate effective and efficient governance arrangements for a project or programme is key. Luckily, PMO Learning has a course centered on Project, Programme, and Portfolio Governance.

Click here to read more about the course!

Lack of clarity about benefits.

PMOs can experience several problems when it comes to benefits management. It’s often one of the trickiest areas to provide effective support. What are the benefits that the project is supposed to deliver? How will these benefits be measured? This lack of clarity can make it difficult to track and measure the benefits of the project and can lead to problems down the road.

Does your organisation have an effective process of benefits management? Do you and your colleagues know the key stages within the Benefits Management Lifecycle and how it aligns to the Project and Programme Lifecycle?

Understanding the benefits management lifecycle, and how to identify, realise and evaluate benefits is important to the PMO to ensure projects are delivering the outcomes intended for the organisation’s strategy.

Having an effective benefits management process will improve projects success rate, improve decision making and avoid costly mistakes.

If you are unsure of how to identify benefits early on or are experiencing challenges in your organisation, our 2-day Benefits Management and the Role of the PMO course will explore potential strategies and tactics to overcome them.

To gain the knowledge that PMOs need in benefits management today, enrol on the next Benefits Management and the PMO course.

Not knowing which areas to focus improvements on

In a PMO, there are always areas to improve on but you’re not sure which improvements to make next or where your time would be best spent?

Value Stream analysis gives your PMO a range of new metrics which can enhance decision-making, and improve project performance.

Value Streams are important to the PMO as it improves alignment between the PMO and the business, can identify and eliminate waste and improve communication and collaboration.

These concepts may be new to many PMO Leaders, and as a PMO focused training company, we are always looking to offer provide new, innovative and relevant training courses. This is why we are launching Value Streams and the PMO specialist course, to encourage PMO leaders to consider how their PMO operates, its goals, its OKRs and suggest how using Value Stream Mapping and concepts can be used to improve PMO service delivery, highlight areas for improvement and value creation.

Click here to read more about the new course and view upcoming dates!