Among IT professionals, IT consultants tend to be more well versed in project management techniques and processes than, say, your garden-variety network administrator. Not surprisingly, organizations will often call on consultants to help establish a project management office (PMO).
With that in mind, project management guru and TechRepublic columnist Tom Mochal put together an eight-part series on helping your clients establish a PMO. Here’s a breakdown of each article and what it can offer you or your clients when setting up a PMO.
- “Establishing a Project Management Office”
All those Y2K projects did more than just load organizations with new software and hardware. In many cases, businesses established project management offices to handle large-scale tasks. Three years later, Y2K is gone, but PMOs remain. Here’s how consultants can introduce clients to the PMO and the efficiencies it can bring. - “You must build a PMO that makes the most sense to your organization”
Consultants can’t expect the latest PMO they’re helping a client establish to be a carbon copy of one they set up last year in a different organization. Knowing how the PMO will work within the client’s organization dictates how the office will be set up. - “Deploying project management in a client’s organization”
What’s the best way to convince your client’s workers that they’re going to have to approach projects differently? Heed these suggestions to help your client’s workers adjust to working with a PMO. - “Defining and supporting project management methodology”
A project management methodology includes the processes, procedures, templates, best practices, standards, guidelines, and policies that you use to manage projects. Here’s how they’re put together for your clients. - “Build project management skills through training and coaching”
Okay, so you’ve put a PMO in place for your client. Make sure that you’ve given your client’s employees enough instruction to understand project management processes. - “The PMO should perform audits and assessments to validate progress”
What good is a PMO—and how can you demonstrate its value to your client—if you don’t gauge how it’s performing? This article includes sample questions that you would use when auditing a PMO. - “Leverage the PMO to consolidate project status and metrics”
Reporting problems and incomplete information can complicate a consultant’s efforts to understand the status of an organization’s projects. Here’s how to overcome these obstacles. - “Rounding out the PMO with other product and service offerings”
Helping to steer a client’s projects is great, but what else can a consultant who helps establish a project management office offer? Try these additional services to increase the value of the PMO.
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