Changes in Public Sector Management: Establishment of Project Management Offices – A Comparative Case Study of Lithuania and Denmark

Abstract

This paper analyses an attempt to initiate an organizational-administrative reform on the basis of experimental (pilot) project initiated by the Ministry of Economy in Lithuania which established a specialized unit – Project Management Office (PMO) – responsible for portfolio1 of programs and projects’ coordination at ministerial level. The paper shortly describes types of reforms and how they can be implemented, as well as the notion of portfolio, program and project management and organizational capability to manage them, as one of the attributes of organizational maturity in project management is an existence of PMO. This article focuses on the main features of PMO and describes two qualitative case studies. Lithuanian and Danish cases are provided and differences of PMOs are analysed. The cases provide insights that the transition to portfolio, program and project management might last for decades. Although the reform did not gain the acceleration in Lithuania, the trend toward project management embedment in the public sector in Europe is evidenced and more cases of the establishment of PMO are observed.