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

Steps to Establishing a Project Support Office

In order to plan for a PSO there are four critical questions that must be answered. One of them deals with defining a desired future for our organization's PSO—the goal, so to speak. But to reach that goal we have to assess where we currently are with respect to that goal. The answer to that question identifies a gap between the current state and the future state. That gap is removed through the implementation plan for our PSO. And so the four questions, arranged chronologically are:

• Where are you?
• Where are you going?
• How will you get there?
• How well did you do?

Before we attempt to answer those questions we need a foundation for answering them. The Software Engineering Institute (SEI) provides just the foundation we need. Their five-level model described in Chapter 11 gives us a foundation on which we can plan for the further growth and maturation of our PSO.