PMO for Small Organizations

PMO is often seen as a bottleneck in small organizations. Quite understandable. People wear multiple hats for project delivery and are very closely associated with daily project activities.

Is a PMO required for small organizations?
PMO is an asset for any organization; it is an investment for the organizations future. The purpose of a PMO is not to be ‘The Ringmaster’. The main objective of any PMO would be to define and implement processes and measure the outcome of such processes in project delivery context. So, PMO is required irrespective of the size of the company. However, the PMO might have to be tailored to the needs of different organizations.

Some characteristics of small organizations:

• People wear multiple hats, so the roles and responsibilities are not clearly defined.
• Absence of the culture of measuring performance.
• People stretch themselves to complete the ongoing projects. They do not have additional capacity for activities like documenting or reporting.
• Lack of budget to implement new processes or to acquire new tools.
• Owners make all the decisions and in many cases based on their intuition.

Where does one start?

Keep it Simple!

One has to keep it very simple – for sure! Elaborate documentation can/should be avoided to begin with. One of the first steps has to be to convince the decision maker as well as the team about the business value of a PMO. Once there is a buy-in then a (very) minimum set of processes or activities that are critical to delivery have to be identified; define appropriate metrics and start measuring them. More items can be added to this list later on but keep it really small to begin with!

Adopt the right tools
Tools like GWD Suite augment the managerial capacity by automating the key processes like collecting metrics at every project stage; simplifying stake holder management (or reporting); providing the project visibility across the organization etc. These tools are also available on a per-seat or SaaS basis which greatly reduces the upfront CAPEX. So, organizations should not shy away from leveraging such tools irrespective of the size of the company.

Think BIG!
Organizations that think big grow big! So, having the right attitude is as important as having the right tools and capacity. The first step towards PMO invariably has to be towards cultivating the right attitude in the organization.