The Project Management Office (PMO) is the core of successful project operations. 🎈

What is a PMO? It is the central organization or administrative office that ensures smooth operations during business transformation or information system development projects.

Are you looking to dramatically improve your company’s productivity and lead transformative projects?

This article introduces the concept of the PMO (Project Management Office), which is critical to ensuring the smooth execution of business transformation and information system development projects. 🎈

#project #leadership #projectleadership #プロジェクト推進力

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⏩ Establishing a PMO to ensure smooth project execution

To ensure the PMO functions effectively, it is essential to appoint two or three key PMO personnel.

✅ What are the roles of a PMO?

• Securing meeting rooms

• Managing and maintaining the project schedule

• Scheduling reporting sessions with sponsors (project owners)

• Organizing weekly and monthly project meetings, and creating minutes

• Preparing and maintaining project reports, reference materials, and documentation

• Procuring necessary supplies and office materials for the project

Next, a project structure will be developed.

✅ Selecting key personnel to build the project structure

• Project Sponsor: The business leader responsible for the project and has the authority to allocate people and budget

• Project Leader: The individual responsible for planning and executing the project

• Steering Committee: A decision-making body that addresses any concerns raised during the project

• Project Team Members: They work alongside the project leader to investigate existing issues, plan reforms, conduct surveys and interviews, and communicate with key departments

The diagram below illustrates this structure. The Hx numbers refer to the six key conditions for project success as defined in Change Management methodology.

The PMO plays a central role in driving the project from initiation to execution, ensuring goals are met throughout.

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⏩ Once the PMO is in place, the following decisions need to be made

✅ Setting project duration and goals

A three-month period is ideal.

The project sponsor should be interviewed several times to fully understand the long-term vision.

Questions such as, "What do you want the project to achieve in five years?" and "What changes or actions do you envision?" should be discussed.

By the end of the three-month period, a clear understanding of the project’s objectives should be defined.

The three-month goal should align with the project plan and stakeholder values.

The project plan should encompass:

• What will change, and how

• Priority of changes

• Justification for the changes

• Timeline and schedule

• Required investment and return plan

✅ Defining and consistently executing weekly project activities

Weekly project review sessions:

• Every week, gather project team members for discussions. Given that they will continue their regular duties while working on the project, it is typically practical to allocate one to two days a week for these activities.

Examples of specific discussion topics:

• Current status (e.g., processes, customer feedback, lead times, product complaints, etc.)

• Drafting and gaining approval for the project “Vision”

• Hypothesis development on what changes are needed to achieve the Vision

• Collecting feedback from various departments, customers, and suppliers to validate hypotheses

• Summarizing results of hypothesis testing

• Creating a reform schedule and budget

• Preparing for weekly review meetings (materials)

• Reporting meeting results to the sponsor and adjusting the project’s course

• Escalating concerns to the steering committee when necessary

• Reviewing results and refining the next weekly project meeting

✅ Establishing the "Project Work Bench" – the rules for project operations

Key elements include

• Define project name

• document naming convensions and rules

• predefined templates (e.g., PowerPoint "pot" files)

• file sharing rules

• server specifications, etc.

The PMO will establish these protocols, share them with the project team, and ensure compliance, thereby improving project productivity.

For more details, please refer to the following article.

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⏩ The Need for Project Leadership

Project leadership is about driving the project forward in a way that encourages the project team and sponsors to say,

• "You're doing a great job!"

• "I can follow you with confidence!"

• "I trust you with this!"

• "You’re impressive!"

How can this be achieved?

It requires strong willpower to transform past project failures into successes.
Developing one or two skills that can truly impress people is key.

For example, quickly summarizing meeting minutes and submitting them within minutes after a meeting.

Additionally, having multiple approaches for progressing the project, such as:

• Hypothesis testing methods

• Meeting facilitation techniques

• Industry-standard tools such as the Five Forces, 3-Axis Strategy, and 4Ps (commonly used in consulting)

While it may take courage at first, I encourage you to challenge yourself.

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⏩Summary

I have introduced the concept of the Project Management Office (PMO), which plays a central role in smoothly executing projects like business transformation and information system development.

✅ Establishing the PMO
✅ Key considerations the PMO should drive
✅ The importance of project leadership

The concept of project leadership, which I specialize in, encompasses deep techniques and extensive know-how.

If you have time, please refer to the article below, which serves as an index for project leadership. I encourage you to check it out.

Thank you for reading until the end.