1.5: Program Management Office

Program Management Office

Other Information:

The OCIO will implement a Program Management Office (PMO). The objective of the PMO is to deliver strategic IT projects with more consistency and efficiency. The PMO will rely on three metric areas to determine its effectiveness: (1) accuracy of cost estimates, (2) accuracy of schedule estimates, and (3) project stakeholder satisfaction. Responsibilities of PMOs will range from providing a clearinghouse of project management best practices to conducting formal portfolio management reviews, but the management of the individual IT projects will continue to lie with the project managers in each section. The responsibilities of the PMO will include: • Provide project management guidance to project managers in each OCIO section. • Develop and implement a consistent and standardized project management process and methodology. Methodology refers to the processes, procedures, templates, best practices, standards, guidelines, policies, etc., that project managers use to perform certain aspects of work. The methodology provides the framework that your project managers use to manage the work. • Conduct training programs. Training is one of the premiere services offered by PMOs and involves putting classes together to create an overall project management curriculum. The curriculum can include internal classes, vendor classes, computer based training, etc. • Advise employees about best practices through internal consulting and mentoring. Mentoring refers to working with individual project managers or project teams to transfer knowledge and teach new skills. Mentoring is different than training in that training implies a formal teacher-pupil relationship and the formal instruction of material. • Select and maintain project management tools for use by OCIO project managers in each section. • Establish portfolio management processes to manage multiple projects that are related, such as infrastructure technologies, desktop applications, etc., and allocate resources accordingly. • Implement common roll-up reporting on the state of all the projects being executed within the OCIO. This service will also extend to keeping metrics on historical projects to the successful execution of projects over time. The PMO will also track the backlog of projects that have not yet begun to provide OCIO management with a complete, portfolio-wide view of all active, pending, and historical projects. • The PMO will perform periodic project audits. Project audits are one way for the PMO to validate that the project teams are utilizing the appropriate project management processes. • Develop a project management repository. One of the value propositions for deploying common project management processes is the ability to reuse processes, procedures, templates, etc. This reuse also extends to the level of being able to reuse specific documentation from prior projects. The PMO will establish and manage a document repository to facilitate process and document reuse. Overall, the PMO will help ensure that the OCIO can deliver its infrastructure, technology, and business applications projects on time, within budget, and to the satisfaction of the OPIC community.

Indicator(s):

Indicator:1

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