What is Project Management Office (PMO) & its Benefits
Discover how a Project Management Office (PMO) can boost project success, efficiency, and strategic alignment.
A PMO becomes more effective when supported by work management software that standardizes project tracking across teams.
Work Management Made Easy
Summary
- 74% report better performance after 6 years - PricewaterhouseCoopers survey found organizations with mature PMOs (six years or more) achieve significantly better performance and quality outcomes compared to those without centralized project oversight
- Three PMO types for different cultures - Supportive PMOs provide suggestions and guidance, controlling PMOs hold teams accountable to deadlines, and directive PMOs actively manage projects; your choice depends on organizational culture and how intensely you need intervention
- Knowledge centralization prevents duplicate work - Teams a few hundred feet apart often struggle with similar challenges; PMOs capture and distribute learnings, tools, industry insights, and techniques so teams stop reinventing the wheel on every project
- Data-driven decisions with fresh perspective - Regular PMO reporting helps leadership decide which projects deserve investment, identify teams for specialized projects, and spot new opportunities; external PMOs provide outsider perspectives that counter groupthink, blind spots, and internal politics. See how Tallyfy provides PMO-level process management
A project management office (PMO) is a group that provides project management to your organization. At the project level, a project management office provides a project manager to help ensure everything stays on schedule and in line with stakeholder goals.
On a more holistic, organizational level, a PMO owns and maintains standards and methods. They might work on optimizing efficiency, documenting processes and reporting project progress. This can help leaders make strategic decisions about which projects to continue to invest in.
If you have worked with a project manager (PM) on a project, you probably know the difference they can make. From what I’ve seen across our mid-market (55%) and enterprise (45%) customer base, you are better able to focus on your work while they are keeping track of deadlines, next steps, and deliverables.
In a survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers, 74% of organizations with a PMO set up for six years or more reported better performance and quality. A PMO is kind of a no-brainer - they keep projects on track, you get better insight into performance, etc. - but that doesn’t make it any easier to take the initiative to start one.
To help you assess whether a PMO is worth investing the time and energy in, we’ve put together a list of reasons of why it’s worth it.
Why you need a PMO - top 10 benefits
Every company is different, but the benefits of project management are universal. There are benefits to having someone who owns project management best practices for the organization. Even if it’s an office of one, a PMO can help…
Increase consistency
By owning and maintaining best practices, the PMO helps ensure procedures are maintained. That way, teams don’t have to reinvent the wheel with each project. They have a standing approach to use, and if they’re at a loss for how to move forward they can refer to the PMO for guidance.
Hold teams accountable
Someone from the PMO can provide a needed outside perspective to keep teams on track. This is both in terms of project goals, timeline, and deliverables.
They are there to make sure the project stays on schedule. Depending on the type of PMO you have set up, they might also make strategic decisions to help a struggling project.
A PMO can also help maintain company strategy and culture in projects. They can hold teams’ work and behaviors to company standards.
For instance, if company values state to communicate candidly about issues, they might mediate a discussion with the team.
Stay nimble
When you want to seize a new opportunity or go in a different direction, you may need to change course on the fly. In that situation, it helps to know the status of different projects and identify which one should be put on hold. A PMO’s regular reporting on project progress can help inform strategic decisions.
Share knowledge
Very often teams will learn something new as they work through a problem. A few hundred feet away, another team may be struggling with a similar challenge. In our experience with workflow automation, we have observed that one HR person can efficiently manage 10-20 simultaneous onboardings when project information is centralized - versus struggling with even a handful when it is scattered. With a PMO, you can centralize your teams’ learnings in one place. This makes it easier to share and distribute knowledge, as well as new tools, industry insights, techniques and process steps.
Analyze performance data
Use the PMO’s data on projects’ success to tap into enterprise-wide performance insights. You could track project types, teams, time of year, project length and more to start to identify performance trends.
For instance, you might notice some teams are better with certain project types and decide to make them more specialized. You can also identify areas where your organization might improve. If your average project time is high, you might investigate why and work with your PMO to streamline processes or bring in a new project management framework altogether.
Educate others
You can tap the knowledge of your project management office to promote best practices in the organization. For instance, a member of your PMO could present on project management topics or write a simple project management newsletter with tips and reminders.
Stay up to date on best practices
Part of the PMO’s responsibility should be to stay up on PM best practices. They could attend conferences, read the latest industry publications and network with peers. They should then inform the organization’s PM standards with the latest and greatest from the project management community.
Tap an external vendor’s knowledge
Your PMO doesn’t have to be internal. You can work with an external company to handle the duties a project management office would. This probably affords even more of an outsider’s perspective, which can help counteract groupthink and blind spots. They are also especially insulated from internal politics.
Break down silos
Projects often pull together people from different areas of the organization. They may have different priorities, managers, and working styles.
A project manager’s job is to keep everyone communicating and mediate those different perspectives to keep everyone moving forward.
Every company is different, and the decision to start a PMO needs to be carefully considered. Assess your strengths and weaknesses when it comes to project management.
Frankly evaluate whether you have issues with silos, hitting dates or remaining nimble. You could probably benefit from a project management office. Most teams do.
Or, if you’re about to make a significant change or kick off a big project, you should also consider getting a PMO up and running.
Setting up a project management office
Now that you’re more familiar with what a PMO does, it’s time to implement one. Your company may be hesitant to change, but the good news is you can start simple.
A PMO should be tailored to fit your organization. In discussions we have had about scaling operations - particularly with government contractors managing ISO 9001 and CMMC certifications across five departments - there are different types of PMOs, including supportive, which provides suggestions and guidance, controlling for holding teams accountable to deadlines, and directive for actively managing projects. The type you choose should depend on your culture, goals, and how intensely you need a project management office to intervene.
Once you determine the best type for your team, keep in mind best practices as you build your PMO. Gartner recommends seven best practices, including starting with the right people, identifying the PMO’s objectives and defining a framework to structure what success looks like.
Is your PMO effective?
Are you hearing this at work? That's busywork
Enter between 1 and 150,000
Enter between 0.5 and 40
Enter between $10 and $1,000
Based on $30/hr x 4 hrs/wk
Your loss and waste is:
every week
What you are losing
Cash burned on busywork
per week in wasted wages
What you could have gained
160 extra hours could create:
per week in real and compounding value
Total cumulative impact over time (real cost + missed opportunities)
You are bleeding cash, annoying every employee and killing dreams.
It's a no-brainer
If you need a refresher on why project management is important or what a project manager does, read our guide on “What is Project Management?”
About the Author
Amit is the CEO of Tallyfy. He is a workflow expert and specializes in process automation and the next generation of business process management in the post-flowchart age. He has decades of consulting experience in task and workflow automation, continuous improvement (all the flavors) and AI-driven workflows for small and large companies. Amit did a Computer Science degree at the University of Bath and moved from the UK to St. Louis, MO in 2014. He loves watching American robins and their nesting behaviors!
Follow Amit on his website, LinkedIn, Facebook, Reddit, X (Twitter) or YouTube.
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