The Project Management Office (PMO) A Quest for Understanding

, by Aubry, PhD, MPM, Monique; Hobbs, Brian

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ISBN: 9781933890975 | 1933890975
Cover: Paperback
Copyright: 4/1/2010

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How should project management offices be structured, and what functions should they perform? Project management practitioners have been asking these questions since the advent of project management offices, and The Project Management Office (PMO): A Quest For Understanding aims to provide answers.

Acknowledgments	p. v
List of Figures	p. xi
List of Tables	p. xiii
Executive Summary	p. xv
Introduction	p. 1
What is a PMO?	p. 1
The Definition of a PMO	p. 1
A Model of the PMO	p. 2
The Emergence of PMOs	p. 4
PMOs in the Literature	p. 5
The Origins and Goals of the Research	p. 7
The Research Program	p. 8
Phase I: A Descriptive Survey of 502 PMOs	p. 9
Phase II: The Development of a Rich Conceptual Model to Guide Further Investigation	p. 11
Phase III: In-depth Case Studies Aimed at Understanding the Dynamics Surrounding PMOs in Organizational Context	p. 11
The Global Methodological Strategy	p. 13
The Variance Approach	p. 13
The Process Approach	p. 14
A Multi-year Program	p. 14
How to Read This Book	p. 16
Limits of the Research	p. 17
A Descriptive Portrait of PMOs	p. 19
Introduction	p. 19
The Web-based Survey Design	p. 19
The Development and Deployment of the Surveys	p. 19
The Survey Instruments	p. 20
The Respondents and the Organizational Contexts of PMOs	p. 22
The Respondents	p. 22
The Organizational Contexts	p. 23
Types of Project in the PMO's Mandate	p. 27
The Structural Characteristics of PMOs	p. 29
The Name Used to Identify the PMO	p. 29
Time to Implement a PMO	p. 30
Number and Location Within the Organizational Hierarchy	p. 30
PMO Staff	p. 33
Adequacy of Funding	p. 33
Billing for Services	p. 34
Age of the PMO	p. 34
Percentage of Projects Within the Mandate of the PMO	p. 35
Percent of Project Managers in the PMO	p. 36
Decision-making Authority of PMOs	p. 37
The Roles or Functions of PMOs	p. 38
The Functions Filled by PMOs	p. 38
Groups of Functions	p. 41
The Performance of PMOs	p. 46
Strong Points and Areas for Improvement	p. 48
Conclusion	p. 49
An Empirically Grounded Search for a Typology	p. 51
Introduction	p. 51
Methodology and Chapter Structure	p. 52
The Data	p. 52
The Analysis of Data	p. 53
Statistical Methods	p. 54
Organizational Context and Project Type as Bases for Typologies of PMOs	p. 55
Variables not Showing Significant Relationships with PMO Characteristics	p. 55
Organizational Characteristics Showing Significant Relationships with PMO Characteristics	p. 58
Structural Characteristics of PMOs as Bases for Typologies	p. 62
PMO Types Based on Location in the Organizational Structure	p. 63
Size and Characteristics of PMO Staff Other than Project Managers	p. 63
Decision-making Authority of the PMO	p. 64
A Trilogy of PMO Design Variables	p. 65
Percentage of Project Managers Within the PMO	p. 66
Percentage of Projects in the PMO's Mandate	p. 66
A Cluster of Characteristics	p. 67
PMO Functions as Bases for Typologies of PMOs	p. 68
Associations Between Pairs of Variables	p. 69
A Search for the Best Explanations of the Importance of Groups of Functions	p. 73
PMOs that Recruit, Select, Evaluate and Determine Salaries for Project Managers	p. 76
PMOs that do Multi-project Management Functions	p. 77
PMOs that Perform Specialized Tasks for Project Managers	p. 78
PMOs Involved in Strategic Management Functions	p. 79
PMOs that Manage Client Interfaces	p. 80
PMOs Involved in Organizational Learning	p. 81
Functions that are Poor Bases for Types of PMOs	p. 83
Functions as Bases of Types of PMOs	p. 85
A Synthesis of the Analysis to Form a Model of Types of PMOs	p. 85
An Augmented Cluster of Variables Forms a Model of a PMO	p. 85
Pursuing the Typology Further	p. 86
Use and Interpretation of the Typology	p. 89
The Performance of PMOs	p. 90
Explanations of PMO performance based on the organizational context and the characteristics of PMOs	p. 90
Performance reconsidered	p. 94
Conclusion	p. 99
The in-Depth Investigation of PMOs	p. 103
Introduction	p. 103
Literature Review	p. 104
Strategic Alignment: A Need that Becomes a Function	p. 105
Program and Portfolio Management	p. 106
Project-Based or Project-oriented Organization	p. 107
Organizational Performance	p. 108
The Conceptual Framework	p. 110
The Social Innovation System	p. 111
Organizational Performance of the PMO	p. 112
Case Study Methodology	p. 116
Strategy for Data Collection	p. 117
Strategy for Data Analysis	p. 119
Case Descriptions	p. 120
Organization COM	p. 121
Organization FIN1	p. 123
Organization MULTIM	p. 124
Organization FIN2	p. 125
Multiple Views on PMO Organizational Performance	p. 126
The Competing Values Framework in Detail	p. 126
The Model of Competing Values Applied in the Context of the PMO	p. 129
The Contribution of PMOs to Organizational Performance: Empirical Results	p. 132
The Identification of Indicators of the PMO's Contribution to Organizational Performance	p. 135
Conclusion	p. 143
The Process Side of PMOs	p. 145
Introduction	p. 145
The Literature on Organizational Innovation	p. 146
The General Literature on Innovation	p. 146
From Evolutionary Theory to Coevolution	p. 147
Coevolution	p. 148
Institutional Isomorphism	p. 149
Organizational Innovation in the Project Management Literature	p. 149
Modeling the PMO Transformation Process	p. 150
Conditions	p. 152
Resulting Structure	p. 154
Consequences	p. 154
The Empirical Study	p. 154
A Typology of Organizational Tensions	p. 155
Economic Tension	p. 155
Political Tension	p. 156
Client Relationship Tension	p. 157
Standardization / Flexibility Tension or Business vs. Process Orientation	p. 157
Controlling the Project Machine Tension	p. 158
The Most Important Drivers of PMO Transformation	p. 158
Two Alternative Interpretations	p. 160
The PMO as an Organizational Innovation	p. 160
PMOs as Manifestations of Organizational Instability	p. 161
Conclusion	p. 162
Conclusion	p. 163
The Demand for Guidelines	p. 163
How PMOs are Structured	p. 164
The Roles of PMOs	p. 166
Types of PMOs	p. 167
PMO Embedded in Organizational Dynamics	p. 167
Theoretical Foundations	p. 169
Changing Organizational Myths	p. 170
Appendices	p. 171
References	p. 173
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The Project Management Office (PMO) A Quest for Understanding

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