The differential practices of project management offices for supporting new product development in high-tech companies

Abstract

The article, through presenting a company's project management office (PMO), argues about practices a PMO must establish for supporting new product development (NPD) in high-technology companies. A holistic case-study was performed where data gathered comes from interviews, direct and participant observation, and document analysis. The practices identified differ from the current literature about the PMO functions. The whole set of functions performed by the described PMO responds to specific processes an NPD project asks for. It begins monitoring, analysing, and systematising product requirements to develop project schedules. During project execution, it supports configuration management through engineering change management. When prototyping, it carries on provisions of the necessary materials and subcontracted processes for assembling and testing. These PMO functions are compared to the current PMO literature. It is suggested that the functions undertaken by the PMO can enhance the theoretical options for structuring PMOs in NPD-based companies avoiding mimicry dysfunctions.