4 Questions to ask when starting a PMO

There are many questions you need to ask when you start a PMO. We immediately want to go to defining the services, building templates, taking on an army of PMs, and starting projects. Before we come in like gangbusters, take a few moments to ask some very fundamental questions that you may want to answer before you start defining the services and the rest of the stuff we think of when starting a PMO.

What business problem are we trying to solve?

First things first. You need to know your purpose. Before you even get into the list of services you will provide, you need a mission, a greater purpose that you are fulfilling through the PMO construct. Your mission is not to manage projects. Your mission is not to create templates and tools. Your mission is to get to outcomes that positively impact the organization you serve. To do that, you need to be very clear on the business pain points, challenges, or new opportunities that your PMO will help solve. Get crystal clear on that before you do anything else.

Oh! And whatever you do, do not assume you know what’s best for the organization. Whether you’ve been there 1 month or 20 years, you still aren’t inside the heads of the business leaders that are creating the opportunity for the PMO. Ask them. Talk to them a lot! They will eventually tell you what you need to know.

But what if I do know what’s best for them? Who cares? Not them. Sometimes we won’t take the medicine we really need until we trust that it’s really going to make us feel better. So, make them feel better first. Solve some easier to reach pain points for them to build trust. Then you can get their engagement to consider the medicine that they really need. J

For more thoughts on why the PMO exists in the first place, check out this post: Why do PMOs exist?

How are we going to show value quickly?

Your leaders are going to invest time, money and resources in getting this PMO up and running. Even if it’s only part of a single person to start (as I know has been the case with many of you and also how I started with my first PMO in 1999), your time is still an investment that the leadership is making and they are expecting to see a result. That result has to equate to greater impact than the time/money/resources they have invested in the PMO. Therefore, your job is to figure out how you take the business problem you are trying to solve with question one and determine how you can ease the pain on your stakeholders quickly.

It may not be in the way you would have originally thought. For example, does the business area you serve have a project that is just hemorrhaging money? Get in there and help them rescue that project, and fast! Please don’t stop and say, “Wait! Let me build 15 templates first before I help this project get back on track!” Just go Get. It. Done. for them. You will build credibility and engagement – you have created advocates that will support you as you build out your PMO.

Who is my primary sponsor?

Every project should have a sponsor and the build out of your PMO is no different than any other project. The organization that sustains should have a sponsor/champion for the organization outside of the PMO leader themselves and the project to build the PMO should have a sponsor. They can be one in the same, but they need to be identified.

It’s awesome if you can have this person be the CEO or department leader for your organization. The higher up in the organization, the better. If you can’t gain interest or support from the higher ups in your organization then you probably shouldn’t be building the PMO. Go back to question one and figure out what business problem you are being asked to solve and how that impacts your stakeholders.

Oh, and if you need any help thinking about how to best get your sponsor to be involved and stay involved, check out this post: How to train your sponsor.

Who’s with me?

To keep things simple, I like to think of three types of stakeholders. The lovers, the haters and the just don’t cares.

The lovers, those are the folks that are with you. They support the PMO, they agree with what you are trying to do, and they will go out of their way to help you succeed. They are often inside the PMO, the sponsor, the PMO leader (I hope!) and those that think they can benefit from the PMO being in place and supporting their efforts.

The haters, those are the people in your organization that are very vocal about their lack of enthusiasm for the PMO. They are often the long career types that have been at the company for a long time and have seen the PMO construct come and go without ever really gaining any traction. Or, it’s been such a thorn in their side that they just can’t get behind it. If it’s the latter, you may want to go back to question one and understand how you can solve business problems for these folks to help them turn the corner. You can also work with the haters to engage them in the process. What? Why would I do that? They hate what the PMO is doing! They won’t help me.

Well, they might. The haters are at least talking to you. They are vocal and engaged in a conversation. It may not be a pleasant conversation, but it’s a conversation nonetheless. Talk to them about their concerns. Let them vent all they want about how the PMO doesn’t work. Then, hand them the white board marker and put them in front of the whiteboard and have them show you how they would fix it if they were you. Bam! Now you have them engaged in problem solving. Guess what happens when people feel like they have a stake in the outcome because they helped you “solve the problems” with the PMO?

The category of people you really need to worry about are the just don’t cares. They are the ones running around acting like your PMO doesn’t even exist. They are the ones that think they are better off without you or feel like what you are doing doesn’t impact them. And maybe it doesn’t…or maybe it should, but they are moving along nicely without you, further proving the lack of need for a PMO. Spend your energy here. Get these folks onboard or the fact that they are being “allowed” to ignore your existence will encourage others to follow suit, leading to the demise of your PMO.

How? Figure out their WIIFM (what’s in it for me) and figure it out quickly. What do they care about? What problems are they having that you could possibly solve? Don’t take on too much too fast regarding new services or making commitments, but see if you can find a way to ease the pain they are feeling. You will give them a reason to care.

More on dealing with difficult stakeholders.

Once those questions have been asked and thoroughly answered, the next set of questions you may want to consider…

1. Where will we start? Define a small customer base that you will serve. Don’t start serving every business unit in the company all at once.
2. What services will we offer (based on questions one and two above)?
3. Where will our funding come from?
4. How many phases do we want our PMO implementation to have? If you aren’t getting this one, go read Don’t Boil the Ocean. Please, do everyone a favor and do the build out of services in pieces. It would be awful to build out a bunch of templates and tools for services the business doesn’t actually find helpful. Start small and build credibility before building more services.

If you would like more information on this topic, I have three opportunities for you to learn more:

You can download a FREE PMO Proposal template to help you make the case (or restate the case) for your PMO.

And you definitely need to check out my IMPACT Engine™ online training courses and coaching programs! These programs cover start to finish all the necessary ingredients, tools, templates, and resources, as well as lifetime access to all of the training materials and training videos on how to build and run an IMPACT Engine™ PMO.

For more on how to do the build out of the PMO, check out our Building Blocks of an Effective and Sustainable PMO article series.