Integrated Framework for Project Management Office Evaluation

Abstract

The project management office (PMO) as a dynamic organizational entity is a significant participant in reaching the strategic achievements of companies. This unit has become the focus of project management-related research, and tasks of professionals in companies operating typically in multi-project environment. The appearance of related maturity models, practical feedback, and certifications indicate the topicality of this topic. The appropriate management of the portfolio by PMOs is especially important for project organizations (e.g. in the construction sector), where revenue directly depends on the performance of the projects. Thus to implement, operate, and understand a PMO better in any organization raises fundamental questions and requires great attention. Unfortunately, the approach towards PMOs is not fully consistent and many rather independent results with some overlap have been published so far, therefore this recurring, constantly changing problem requires a great deal more research. These studies are not only substantially different, but describe even the common domains in different ways. Although the importance of this issue is widely recognized, the definition, basic roles and functions, characteristics, expected performance etc. are still not standardized, and will probably not be for a long time. This exploratory study identifies the development of definitions, the evaluation of state-of-the-art models and typology, and reveals a new, integrated framework to analyze PMOs. Identifying the most specific and noticeable evaluation segments of PMOs leads to a better understanding of PMOs and provides potential future research directions.