What is a PMO (project management office)?

What is a PMO?

The term PMO or Project Management Office is becoming increasingly common in the world of project management. But what is a PMO? And what is its use as a project organisation? We are happy to explain it to you.

The term Project Management Office can be defined as follows: ''A Project Management Office is a group or department in a project organisation that applies standards with regard to project management, planning and execution. It also serves as the organisation's central point for project documentation, guidance and success metrics'.

MOJEO sees the PMO as a central place within a project organisation that relieves project (managers). A PMO provides standardization, efficiency and overview.

What are the daily tasks of the PMO?

In general, the PMO is responsible for the guidance, documentation and metrics related to the execution of projects within the organisation. A Project Management Officer (PMO) performs the operational tasks of this.

A PMO can guide and support a project by sharing standard project routes, templates or relevant lessons learned with a project manager. A PMO ensures that documentation is properly stored so that a project proceeds in an organised and structured manner. In addition, a PMO ensures that relevant management reports and dashboards reach all stakeholders through metrics. This way, they are completely up-to-date on the current projects.

A PMO therefore relieves the project organisation of its worries by taking over part of the (operational) tasks, offering guidance/templates and providing unique insights into the status of projects.

Would you like to know more about the 15 important values that a PMO can deliver? Read this blog post.

How does MOJEO set up a PMO?

Setting up a PMO is a specialized project. At MOJEO we always start by talking to the stakeholders and interested parties, at multiple levels within the project organization. In this way we obtain a clear picture of where the needs lie. We only focus on the PMO building blocks that fit the needs.

We deliver truly customised solutions; company A, for example, may benefit more from the resource management block than company B.

After we have made an extensive inventory, we will then set up all the elements required for a successful PMO.

Read here a reference case of how we set up the PMO at Obvion in Heerlen.

How do you man a PMO?

We are also happy to help you man the PMO professionally. Our PMOs have the substantive expertise and the mojo required to relieve the project organisation. Discover the PMO solutions of MOJEO here .

Are you looking for an option to train your internal staff? Then we would like to help you with that too. With the MOJEO Academy, we train professionals to become fully-fledged PMOs. Learn here more about the MOJEO Academy.