Scaling Up: A PMO Strategy to Achieve Bold Outcomes

4. Lack of cross-departmental collaboration. It’s only natural for each team to focus on its own initiatives and objectives, but sometimes that internal focus can result in siloed or unresponsive departments when major input is needed.

Solution: Build intentional lines of communication and clear support channels to protect your team from being inundated with banal requests or bogged down by competing priorities. A right-sized PMO can take responsibility for managing those communication and support channels. By holding consistent touchpoints with each relevant party, this group will be alerted to shared risks and dependencies, and can help prioritize projects accordingly. For example, a retail company may need to implement a technology change freeze during peak seasons, like Black Friday. The PMO can facilitate this and, as an external authority, can ensure that all parties are given reasonable timelines and sets of expectations.

5. Inconsistent communication. As the saying goes, “No plan survives first contact with the enemy.” Once the bullets start to fly in the heat of managing a large project, it’s important that each team member in the trenches is able to communicate with one another. When communication is spotty, too many assumptions are made that end up resulting in re-work and change orders that could have easily been avoided.

Solution: Establish both consistent touchpoints and a central asynchronous channel for project updates to ensure everyone is able to receive vital information. Planning for, creating, and (most importantly) using these communication channels will help teams pivot when challenges arise and ensure that no party is left in the dark because they were inadvertently left off of an outdated email chain.

6. Unclear dependencies between teams. Leaders often express concern about their team being held to another group’s key milestones and timelines, without first being able to incorporate those tasks and requests into their team’s existing work plan. External assumptions about bandwidth can cause balls to be dropped, tasks to be missed entirely, or handoffs to become sticky at critical points of progression. Additionally, unclear priorities and interdependencies can create confusion and slow down progress.

Solution: Create an end-to-end PMO program roadmap with clear milestones, timelines, and dependencies. Acknowledging the need for and naming inter-team dependencies will enable leaders to plan for and delegate tasks appropriately, while ensuring that their own operational tasks and initiatives are taken care of. Additionally, “go/no go” checklists can be used to inspect progression at a granular level to ensure critical milestones prevent change orders down the line.

7. Out-of-scope vendor decisions:  When it comes to keeping up with your regular responsibilities and taking on bold new initiatives, actively managing external contractors can be one of the first things to slip. With a trusted partner, this might be a big help. However, there’s also a risk that unchecked change orders or timeline updates negatively impact the project budget or key milestones.

Solution: Include external vendors as active participants in your PMO meeting and hold them to the same level of accountability, documentation, and rigor as any other team or department on the project. Include expectations for things like weekly written status updates and attendance in PMO meetings as stipulations in the statement of work.

It is critically important to tailor your governance to the right size for your organization. Just like building a campfire, every team needs oxygen to breathe. Too little governance will result in untamed wildfires and runaway teams; too much governance and you’ll choke out any warmth or ability to act autonomously.  A healthy PMO requires balancing that tension but opens clear escalation channels, standard project documentation, and drives crystal clear ownership for each party involved.

Is your team experiencing any of these symptoms? If so, fill out the form below to start the conversation about getting your project back on track.

By Thomas Moseley & Justin Downey