Executive's Guide to Project Management: Organizational Processes and Practices for Supporting Complex Projects

Organization and Placement of a Project Support Office

There are several approaches that organizations have taken in the structure and placement of the PSO. In this section, I will comment on the structures I have seen in practice.

Virtual/Real

A virtual PSO performs all of the functions of any other PSO except that their staff is allocated to the business units. These PSOs are mostly available when their services are needed. They do not perform any routine functions. Other than a director and perhaps an administrative support person, the virtual PSO does not have any other budgeted staff. Professional staff from the business units that are involved with projects volunteer their services to the PSO. This is not a permanent volunteer position. These individuals, who are generally project managers themselves, agree to serve for some period of time and are then replaced. In many cases they volunteer to provide only a specified type of service or services.

The real PSO, on the other hand, does have a budgeted staff of professionals, which probably includes several project managers. They will perform several routine functions such as project reviews and software evaluations. The project reviews are a good way to monitor the adoption of the methodology and uncover best practices as well. Their strength will probably be that they offer a healthy dose of project support services to project teams.

Proactive/Reactive

The proactive PSO aligns very closely with the real PSO and the reactive ...