IMPACT CASE STUDY
Energy Industry Giant Transforms PMO into Strategy Delivery Office, Unleashing Strategic Value and Empowering Team Success in the Energy Industry
In the dynamic energy industry, an adaptive distribution company faced significant challenges in optimizing its project management practices. The company, a prominent player in the Northeast United States, sought to enhance its project management office (PMO) and overcome several pain points.
Despite successfully delivering complex projects, the PMO lacked well-defined roles and boundaries, often being perceived as mere “notetakers” within the organization. Additionally, the PMO’s flat organizational structure hindered individual career development due to limited one-on-one time with the Senior Vice President.
Recognizing the need for improvement, the SVP turned to external expertise to elevate their PMO’s capabilities.
The Challenge
The company’s PMO faced the challenge of streamlining its organizational structure, clarifying roles and responsibilities, and establishing clear boundaries for its strategic contributions. The SVP sought assistance in evaluating the PMO’s current performance and identifying areas for improvement.
With an urgent timeline to secure budget requests for the upcoming year, the company required prompt recommendations to transform the PMO into a Strategy Delivery Office (SDO). The key objective was to align the team’s name with its purpose and define the services, competencies, and strategies necessary for its evolution.
The Solution
To address these challenges, the SVP engaged the expertise of PMO Strategies, a renowned consulting firm specializing in PMO transformations. PMO Strategies embarked on a comprehensive approach to conduct a detailed and thorough organizational assessment, conducting interviews with PMO team members, executives, and stakeholders to gain insights into the current PMO’s role and value, while also understanding the desired future state and identifying gaps. The consulting team reviewed project templates, artifacts, and procedures, and facilitated a SWOT analysis to obtain a holistic understanding of the company’s PMO.
Drawing from these findings, PMO Strategies provided a multi-layered approach to services and capabilities to quickly increase the team’s ability to deliver high-IMPACT results. The first layer of recommendations included restructuring and reorganization of the PMO and the transition to a Strategy Delivery Office more intentionally aligned with ownership for driving the strategy delivery in lockstep with the executives.
The Results
PMO Strategies’ recommendations proved transformative for the company’s PMO. By aligning the team’s name with its strategic purpose, the new SDO was able to establish clear roles, responsibilities, boundaries, and goals aligned more closely with the business outcomes they must drive. The proposed organizational structure provided new job titles that aligned with industry standards, allowing for career development and leadership expansion.
The company’s PMO was rebranded and positioned as a Strategy Delivery Office, focusing on delivering value and driving strategic initiatives. This shift enabled the team to capitalize on their strengths, establish formalized roles, and foster continuous process improvement. With the timely completion of the engagement, the company was able to secure the necessary funds for the PMO transformation, ensuring a positive trajectory for future success.
Wondering what this program can do for you?
Take it from clients who have walked in your shoes!
PMO Strategies helped us build project management capacity and deliver important change at a critical time in the evolution of our organization. The results exceeded our expectations and enabled us to accelerate progress toward our goals. Best of all, we are now more self-sufficient, and our goal of enterprise-wide engagement, adoption, and utilization was achieved with a system that we can sustain and improve over time. Simply put, PMO Strategies made us all better.
Joel Albizo FASAE, CAE , CEO, Council of Landscape Architectural Registration BoardsWe had a strategy, a talented group of people, but we weren’t sure how to get there. PMO Strategies has taken us to the next level by giving us the training and guidance to help us organize and deliver on the most important work we do. It’s been transformational for the organization and I’m so grateful to the team for getting us here.
Mike Welch, Leadership and PMO Executive, American Planning Association
