Event Report:

Elevating Your Business Strategy by Utilising PMOs with High Maturity Levels

It is clear from well-documented experience that delivering a Business Strategy is not easy.

Suppose you don't believe all the articles on Google?

In that case, we can at least believe specific evidence collected at recent sessions which asked, "What reasons have you encountered for why strategies have not been delivered?". Those sessions collated around 150 points from current practitioners, and in essence, the key reasons included:

• Unresponsive or uncommunicated strategy formulation
• Multiple strategies can be challenging to integrate
• Absence of framework for prioritising BAU, Change and Value generation
• Inability to set up and manage accountability
• No standard approach to managing dependencies or resources/funds across BAU, Change and Value Generation
• Information infrastructure just not prepared for integrated governance

The sessions also noted

• Lack of assurance capability to check the right things are being done the right way
• Limited business support resources to orchestrate decision making

But this doesn't talk about PMO – it mentions Business Support. What's the difference?

PMO is business support, but in reality – not much of what we do is projects; mostly, it's business as usual (BAU). Like projects, BAU needs planning, has dependencies, risks, resource allocations, tracking, reporting and governance – but PMOs don't support this as it's not projects. 

Moreover, PMOs don't often get involved in strategy development or planning; they don't exist at that level – as strategy is not just 'projects'. 

So is anybody doing this other support work – well, anecdotally, not, and certainly not looking across it.

Could Higher Maturity PMOs cover this off? Well – maybe, but if they did, then by implication, they would not be PMOs. And what does maturity mean - and why do we need to measure it? How is it relevant to strategy? Consulting various definitions of maturity, maturity defines the journey from doing something to doing it repeatedly to having it defined, measured and optimised. So this doesn't help us when we are trying to extend the Scope of a PMO to provide business support.

Secondly, looking at the P3M3 maturity model, there is nothing specific about PMO – or the wider and deeper functions of Business Support – and this does not cover all aspects of strategy. The P3M3 model is not all that useful for this discussion.

The PMI chips in with “PMO Maturity, and Lessons from the top tier". It provides a valuable set of specific elements grouped into tiers – but again – it doesn't cover the support needed in strategy formulation and business as usual. The problem is the "P".

So, where is this going? Well, PMOs provide critical support to successful projects. APM refers to them recognising effective support (e.g. a PMO) contributes to project success/avoidance of failure. Still, to elevate your Business Strategy, we need to get them broader in organisation scope, not limited to the 'P', and engaged to support business strategy governance.

Well - try here: For a P3 view of Business Support, there are these definitions in the Business Integrated Governance Models.

So - does your PMO have delusions of grandeur about strategy? Can it truly step up to operate strategy formulation and delivery? The session we presented with CPS on 28th June 2022 tackled this subject matter. We explored what we mean by PMO and what the ‘P; stands for. We suggested that Business Support is a core delivery support function that is more than just a temporary 'O". We discussed what does maturity mean - and why do we need to measure it and how it is relevant to strategy. We explored what is a Higher Maturity PMO is, and presented some of its challenges. To wrap up, we offered implications and conclusions and suggested that help is at hand….

Access the session recording here

If you would like to repeat a session like this for your organisation, don't hesitate to use the contact form below, or reach out to Derek Strachan or David Dunning for more information.

Or read more on this strategic theme here.