Setting Up & Running a PMO
Overview
A project management office can help an organisation choose the right projects, deliver them consistently and give leaders a clear view of progress. Yet many PMOs are closed within a few years because they are seen as paperwork and reporting overhead rather than a source of value. Success depends on choosing the right model, services and governance for the organisation's maturity.
This course explains how to set up and run a PMO that people actually value. Participants learn to define the PMO mandate, services and roles, develop practical standards and templates, and support portfolio prioritisation, resource planning and executive reporting. They also plan implementation and adoption, measure the PMO's own performance and explore how digital and AI tools can reduce manual reporting.
Who should attend
PMO managers and staff, programme and project managers, strategy and planning officers, and leaders in ministries and organisations setting up or improving a PMO.
Training methodology
Interactive presentations, practical exercises, case studies, group discussions, role-plays where relevant, and a personal action plan that participants apply in their own work.
Objectives
By the end of this course, participants will be able to:
- Choose the PMO model that fits the organisation's maturity
- Define PMO services, roles and governance
- Develop project standards, templates and reporting
- Support portfolio prioritisation and resource planning
- Measure PMO performance and demonstrate its value
Course outline
- Why organisations create project management offices
- Supportive, controlling and directive PMO models
- Project, programme and enterprise-level PMOs
- Assessing your organisation's project management maturity
- Common reasons PMOs fail and close
- Exercise: choose the right PMO model
- Writing the PMO mandate and charter
- Defining services and a service catalogue
- PMO roles, skills and staffing options
- Governance, decision rights and escalation routes
- Building and keeping executive sponsorship
- Workshop: draft a PMO charter
- A project life cycle with stage gates
- Practical templates and tools teams will use
- Planning and scheduling standards for all projects
- Consistent risk, issue and change management
- Quality assurance and project health checks
- Exercise: design a stage-gate process
- Project selection and prioritisation criteria
- Resource and capacity planning across projects
- Status reporting and executive dashboards
- Tracking benefits after projects close
- Supporting executive decisions with reliable data
- Exercise: prioritise a project portfolio
- A phased roadmap for implementing the PMO
- Change management and winning stakeholder adoption
- Measuring PMO performance and value
- Continuous improvement of PMO services
- Using digital and AI tools to reduce reporting
- Build your PMO action plan
Upcoming dates and fees
No public dates are scheduled for this course at the moment. It can be delivered in-house for your team at your premises or in a city of your choice, or scheduled on request in London, Dubai or Istanbul. Contact us for dates and fees.
training@british-skills.co.uk · +447700100602 · www.british-skills.co.uk/training-course/setting-up-running-a-pmo