The Project Management Office for Successful Projects

Companies with a Project Management Office (PMO) are more successful in completing their projects than those without one. Why? Because a PMO provides comprehensive support to everyone involved in a project.  
 

The Mission of a PMO Varies Depending on the Company

The tasks handled by a PMO may vary depending on factors like the size of the company, the type and size of projects it undertakes, and how international it is. They often change as their level of project management maturity increases. The PMO also takes on preparatory work for project portfolio management. In some companies, it even makes project-related decisions aligned with predefined corporate goals.

Centralized Standards and Optimization

Despite these variations, the PMO’s most important function is to standardize and optimize project management processes and tools. It may also provide advice – and possibly training – to users of the PM system in place. The PMO always assists project managers with their operational project work. 

Coordination of Projects and Resources

One of the first steps to be taken when setting up a PMO is to coordinate interdependent projects and programs. The PMO is also involved in coordinating resource availability between project and department managers. In fact, this may be one of the PMO’s most demanding and time-consuming tasks. It is almost impossible to manage successfully without defined processes and PMO tools to support them. 

Portfolio Control

The PMO can also manage the approval process for new project applications along with the associated project prioritization. However, this usually only happens when the PMO has an authoritative position in the organization. 

PMO Supporting Tools – Extensive Experience Provided

The experts at TPG The Project Group can provide you with comprehensive PMO consulting services while helping you set up your PMO IT support. You can count on TPG’s advice, training and coaching. Tools such as Microsoft Project Server, Project Online, Planisware, SharePoint as well as TPG products based on Microsoft Technology will help make your PMO staff’s work easier.


Support PMO Tasks Effectively with IT Solutions

Current Status Boards and Control Information

For project managers, team leaders, PMO (standardization, coordination)

  • Cross-project links at both task and project level
  • Creation of dependencies
  • Mapping sub-project structures for better team coordination
  • Visualization of milestone overviews and status boards
  • Delivery of overarching management information via backlinks from the status boards to the project plans

The TPG ProjectLink product is a must-have for multi-project and program management with Microsoft technology.
 

Resource Coordination for Line and Project Managers

For team leaders and project managers (coordination)

  • Team leaders recognize the workload and available capacity of each of their team members
  • Support of project managers and team leaders in the coordination of their resource planning
  • Reliability for the project manager's project resource planning
  • Fewer delays of projects and less overbooking / overload for resources
  • Overview as the basis for decisions on additional resource requirements

The TPG TeamManager product supports ressource planning between project and line managers and provides the basis for the PMO's overview of free capacities in the portfolio.
 

Optimization of Resources in the Project Portfolio

For PMO (coordination, control)

  • Graphical simulation of project situations and immediate display of the effects on planned resources
  • Combining all project data in a central overview
  • Easy manual optimization of resource planning and budget use (by drag and drop)

The TPG PortfolioManager product thus allows you to achieve optimal resource utilization over time.
 

Collaboration between Finance Department and Project Managers

For project managers, financial controllers, PMO (standardization, coordination)

  • Integration of your project planning, financial controlling, collaboration and document management
  • Simplification of many work steps due to integrated project management processes: forward planning, budgeting, internal service accounting, invoicing and reporting
  • Omission of double data maintenance
  • Better data quality and decision-making basis for project managers, financial controllers and management

TPG PSLink – a worldwide leading product – integrates Microsoft Project Server or Planisware with SAP and many other systems and enables the PMO to create up-to-date reports quickly from diverse sources.
 

Reports and Information on Projects and Portfolio

For all project participants (operational support)

  • Automated information and recommendations for action by email
  • Avoidance of different states for project data on the PPM system, such as missing feedback, projects that have not been updated, milestone deviations etc.
  • Considerable time-savings due to automated report creation at the push of a button
  • Well-founded decision-making information based on data that is current and derived from diverse systems

Powerful reporting makes a significant difference to the workload of the PMO and speeds up the response time when project or portfolio developments require a timely response.