Creating the project office 12. This is a book about improving organizational performance by implementing a project office system that develops project management as a core competency and thus adds value to the organization. A project office consists of a team dedicated to improving the practice of project management in the organization. The improvement in organizational performance is achieved by obtaining more value from projects, making project management a standard management practice, and then moving the organization toward the enterprise project management concept | 88 Creating the Project Office FIGURE . CHIEF PROJECT OFFICER. Business decisions on a working session of the Top 500 Project Management Benchmarking Forum held in Milwaukee Wisconsin in 1996 Toney 2002 . The benchmarking forums are held two to four times a year under the coordination of Frank Toney director of the Executive Initiative Institute Scottsdale Arizona. The sessions serve to gather information on best practices and stimulate an exchange of ideas on the practice of project management. After considerable debate the thirty representatives who met in Milwaukee came to consensus that the basic project office types are indeed the PSO PMCOE and PMO. Variations Although the PSO PMCOE and PMO groupings are helpful for discussion purposes in practice POs are rarely just alike even if they are part of the same category. The functions described separately may fuse together into different forms. For instance the staff functions of the PSO and the PMCOE might merge even though the PSO is inwardly targeted and the PMCOE is aimed at scanning the outside en Focus 89 vironment to continuously improve methodologies and PM approaches. If those differing thrusts can be combined under the guidance of one group then that hybrid form is perfectly feasible. Other possibilities include incorporating staff support functions with a PMO. Another variation couples the PMCOE with the CPO. A Vision and a Strategy for the Project Office To focus on the right concept and properly design a project office consider several angles since no one-size-fits-all PO can accommodate the characteristics of every organization. Here are questions designed to raise fundamental issues prior to initiating design of the organization What is the size of the organization that the project office is to serve Is it global or otherwise geographically widespread Or is it local and concentrated Or is the target audience only a part of the entire organization What are the desired outputs of the project office
