“The Ultimate PMO: Leading Edge Practices for Effective Strategic Performance Management” provides organizational leaders new insights into successful practices of the top global Project Office organizations.  Participants in this newly designed course delve into a variety of strategic issues, such as how to assess project management maturity of the organization, measuring organizational performance metrics, optimizing resource allocation, managing portfolio performance, assessing the individual competencies of project managers; and how to change the very culture of the organization to a “project culture.” By building the business case through measuring the effectiveness of their SPO, attendees will be able to promote measuring the maturity level of project management within their organization and create a plan to increase its effectiveness, thereby increasing benefits realization. Most importantly, participants will exchange practical ideas on how to manage a Strategic Project Management Office in the context of real-world organizational dynamics.  

A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK^® Guide) areas covered: All.

Who should attend?

• Executives
• Senior managers
• Strategic planners
• Directors of project management
• Project office managers
• Others who are launching a strategic project office and need advanced information to expand its role and influence to a more strategic, enterprise-wide status.

What will my seminar experience cover?

• Module 1: Introduction
  • Overview of the industry and Strategic Project Management Office structures
• Module 2: SPO:  Purpose and Function
  • Review the purpose of implementing a Strategic Project Management Office and how it can benefit your company
• Module 3: Aligning Your SPO with your Organizational Business Needs
  • Align your portfolio with your organizational strategy and demonstrate how your SPO adds value
• Module 4: Enabling Effective Governance
  • Develop a plan to align, integrate and implemement appropriate governance policies in you SPO.
• Module 5: Manage your Portfolio Performance
  • Address the challenges of monitoring portfolio performance to perform portfolio evaluation and measurement
• Module 6: Optimizing Your Resources
  • Identify appropriate roles and responsibilities to effectively run your SPO,  develop key competencies in your project managers, and discover techniques to optimize organizational resource utilization
• Module 7: Overcoming Barriers to Organizational Change
  • Identify and mitigate barriers to effective change implementation while creating a plan for organizational change
• Module 8: Measuring Your SPO’s Effectiveness
  • Develop strategies to overcome barriers to implementing a measurement program and establish a good set of project management performance and value measures
• Module 9: Benefits Realization and Best Practices
  • Measure project management maturity in your organization and describe international best practices to address SPO success factors

Reference Book: Seminar includes the book “The Strategic Project Office; A Guide to Improving Organizational Performance and Project Management Roles & Responsibilities” by J. Kent Crawford, PMP.

How will I benefit?
By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Align the Strategic PMO with your organization’s business needs
• Measure the effectiveness of the Strategic PMO within your organization
• Assess your organization’s Project Management Maturity Level
• Develop your plan to improve and measure organizational improvements
• Identify tools and techniques to integrate with portfolio, budgeting, accounting and other enterprise systems
• Create a plan to increase Project Management competencies within your organization  
• Implement approaches to optimize organizational resource usage
• Develop maturity in the organization through an organizational change management plan
• Manage and control the performance of the portfolio of projects
• Apply governance best practices to the organization.

 What instructional materials will be used?
Case studies, guided discussions, lecture, question-and-answer group sessions and group and individual exercises.