50 Top IT Project Management Challenges

CHALLENGE 46: WAR WITH PMO

Project managers always complain about their IT PMO team being project villains, because they annoy the project teams, they try to educate how reporting expectations must be met, they harass the teams to use ‘standards’, and they ask for additional reports the teams hadn’t planned to provide. In addition, most of the project managers don’t like them and no one wants to work with them. Why? Because they’re not seen as being there to help – they’re seen as being there to uncover mistakes and holler back to the management.

Successful PMOs don’t start by dictating, and/or reporting, and/or controlling, and/or tracking standards. They don’t issue orders, and they never say: ‘you need to do this because management wants it’. ...