The acronym PMO can stand for Project Management Office, Programme Management Office or even Portfolio Management Office.
In order for an organisation to achieve the higher levels of capability maturity it needs to have a central focus for the discipline and profession of P3 management. Somewhere in the organisation there should be a body that has overall responsibility for developing and maintaining standards, development of P3 managers and staff and continuous improvement of project, programme and portfolio delivery.
This may well be the PMO although this will depend entirely on how the PMO is constituted and the powers delegated to it by the organisation’s leadership.
A full PMO would have overall responsibility for processes and functions such as:
- P3 methods.
- Knowledge management.
- Support.
- Assurance.
- Communities of practice.
- Learning and development.
- Ethics.
In some cases the PMO could be synonymous with the portfolio management organisation and the associated responsibilities of commissioning and managing projects and programmes.
