Creating the project office 13. 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 | 98 Creating the Project Office The question What was the greatest contribution to your project office success resulted in the responses competent project office professional staff 55 percent and senior management support 51 percent . Where is it all heading What is the future for project offices Authors Block and Frame say Project offices will continue to proliferate in organizations as more and more adopt project management practices and find that they must institutionalize the project management effort in order to implement these practices effectively 2001 . Block and Frame observe that outsourcing is one of the options raised in the research. David Griffith senior partner with Solutions Integration and the founding chair of PMI s Project Management Office Special Interest Group has seen a substantial increase in outsourcing for many project-based services. While some project office functions have been outsourced organizations are tending to bring this core management competency close to home. From the University In the doctoral dissertation The Role of Project Management Office in Achieving Project Success 2001 researcher Xiaoyi Christine Dai of George Washington University stated that no major empirical research study had been conducted on the title theme or on any aspect of PMOs. She noted that existing information was based on anecdotes personal experiences consulting experiences and analyses based on limited research efforts. The acronym PMO was adopted in the research project even though authorities in the field often use the terms project office project management office and others such as systems program office synonymously. In the study a project office is assumed to be for managing one project and a project or program management office exists to provide supporting and facilitating services to multiple projects it manages no projects directly. The survey results were obtained through two approaches. First a thousand letters were sent randomly to selected
