Case #1: Implementing an Information Technology Project Management Office (IT PMO)

A state government organization hired Cheryl to assist them in defining and implementing an IT PMO to improve the effectiveness and on-time delivery of the large variety of projects in the data center. The challenges faced included:

• Varied improvement efforts that were not defined as projects, making it very difficult to track and prioritize resource needs.
• Each department had its own view of project life cycle phases and terminology resulting in miscommunication between dependent projects
• The whole organization suffered from seriously fragmented resources because each functional manager insisted that all their projects were high priority.
• Inconsistent project management skills varying from rank beginners to sophisticated mangers of large projects.

To address these challenges, Cheryl worked with the newly appointed manager of the IT PMO and her staff. Cheryl was responsible for defining a practical project management life cycle and supporting processes that could be used for many different types of projects from implementing new technology to business process re-engineering. Her responsibilities and accomplishments included:

• Defining and establishing a standard project life cycle consistent with the PMI PMBOK.
• Developing a “Project Start-up Kit” documenting the project initiation, scope change and risk management processes and including templates and checklists.
• Conducting regular meetings with the User Focus Group of key internal managers to define the PMO services that would best support their projects.
• Developing and delivering workshops and short tutorials to introduce the new project management approach and address gaps in the project manager’s knowledge.

As a result, the IT PMO was implemented successfully. The data center uses a standard process for initiating and tracking projects, and is using an improved process to prioritize and assign resources. The templates and checklists are available for project staff to use via an internal web site. The “Project Start-up Kit” and the training tutorials have also been used for similar purposes in other state agency IT departments.