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Identifying and overcoming the challenges of implementing a project management office

  • Original Article
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European Journal of Information Systems

Abstract

With the ongoing challenge of successfully managing information technology (IT) projects, organizations are recognizing the need for greater project management discipline. For many organizations, this has meant ratcheting up project management skills, processes, and governance structures by implementing a project management office (PMO). While anecdotal evidence suggests that implementing a PMO can be quite difficult, few studies discuss the specific challenges involved, and how organizations can overcome them. To address this gap in existing knowledge, we conducted a Delphi study to (1) identify the challenges of implementing a PMO for managing IT projects, (2) rank these challenges in order of importance, (3) discover ways in which some organizations have overcome the top-ranked challenges, and (4) understand the role of PMO structure, metrics, and tools in the implementation of a PMO.

We identified 34 unique challenges to implementing a PMO and refined this list to 13 challenges that our Delphi panelists considered most important. The top-three challenges were (1) rigid corporate culture and failure to manage organizational resistance to change, (2) lack of experienced project managers (PMs) and PMO leadership, and (3) lack of appropriate change management strategy. Through follow-up interviews with selected panelists, we identified a series of actions that can be taken to overcome these challenges including having a strong PMO champion, starting small and demonstrating the value of the PMO, obtaining support from opinion leaders, hiring an experienced program manager who understands the organization, bringing the most talented PMs into the PMO implementation team, adopting a flexible change management strategy, and standardizing processes prior to PMO implementation. The interviews were also used to better understand the role of PMO structure, metrics, and tools. In terms of PMO structure, we found that ‘light’ PMOs were more likely to be implemented successfully. Most organizations eschew formal metrics, instead relying on subjective indicators of PMO success. Lastly, it appears that PMO tools are difficult to implement unless a project management culture has been established.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Process Innovation, J. Mack Robinson College of Business, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Rajendra Singh

  2. Department of Computer Information Systems, J. Mack Robinson College of Business, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Mark Keil

  3. Georgia-Pacific LLC, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Vijay Kasi

Authors
  1. Rajendra Singh
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  2. Mark Keil
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  3. Vijay Kasi
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Rajendra Singh.

Appendices

Appendix A

See Table A1.

Table a1 Comprehensive list of PMO implementation challenges (from Phase I)
Full size table

Appendix B

See Figure B1

Figure B1
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Screenshot of web-interface used for Delphi study (Phase III, after ranking Round 1).Note: University logo and website address masked to maintain anonymity.

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Appendix C

Semi-structured interview protocol

(1) Overcoming the challenges to PMO

  • How did your organization respond to the top-three challenges to PMO implementation? What worked, or did not work?

(2) PMO structure

  • What was the nature of PMO structure in your organization (PMO-light/PMO-heavy/any other)?

  • Do you think it was an appropriate governance structure? In hindsight, would you recommend any changes to this structure? Is there a governance structure that is more likely to be successful, and where would that be on the PMO-light, PMO-heavy scale?

(3) Metrics for PMO evaluation

  • Has your organization successfully implemented a PMO? Did the organization meet the original objectives of establishing the PMO?

  • Did the implementation of PMO have measurable impacts in terms of project success? How did you measure the impact? What metrics did you use?

(4) PMO tools

  • What project management software or portfolio management applications did you use for PMO implementation? How satisfied are you with those applications in terms of ease of use, functionality, and customizability?

  • Do you consider the PMO tools to be useful devices in pushing change related to PMO implementation?

  • If an organization wants to maximize its chances of success in a PMO implementation, is it better to standardize its processes first before buying one of these tool sets, or after procuring them?

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Singh, R., Keil, M. & Kasi, V. Identifying and overcoming the challenges of implementing a project management office. Eur J Inf Syst 18, 409–427 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1057/ejis.2009.29

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