Week 1 Discussion and Project

Project Management Office (PMO) © 2016 South University PMO Many organizations handle the management of multiple projects by having a project management office (PMO). A typical PMO carries out the following functions:

• A PMO assess multiple projects and their interrelationships, for example, resource and skill requirements.

• A PMO ensures that projects are clearly tied to the organization's goals. • A PMO supports projects that align with the organization's strengths and create a

competitive advantage and at the same time avoid projects that the company does not want to endorse.

If the company does not have a PMO, it has a project manager who reviews the projects that are being scheduled to meet the goals. Often, project managers begin to find whether a project aligns with the organization’s goals. As a project manager, your goal is to provide what your customer requires. Your customer could be internal (employees of the company) or external. You always have to set and follow a protocol for what you can and cannot deliver. For example, if you are asked to deliver a transmission, under the department's service level agreement, this will require escalation for approval before communicating an answer to the customer. The customer many times wants to change the delivery date by asking for completion of the project sooner than what was agreed upon. It is the role of the project manager to renegotiate this date following standards of the areas the project interfaces with. Typically the only leeway is if the customer can provide a deliverable that a task requires otherwise, the due date remains the same; it cannot be moved up to be completed sooner than the original scheduled date. As a project manager, your role is to understand what you can deliver on the basis of the agreed upon contract. You will represent many areas of the organization as you perform the dynamic process of managing projects to successful completion.