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

Challenges to Implementing a Project Support Office

Too many executives have the impression that a PSO is mostly a clerical function and establishing one is not too difficult. Nothing could be farther from the truth. J. Kent Crawford provides a compelling discussion of some of those challenges (The Strategic Project Office: A Guide to Improving Organizational Performance, Second Edition, New York: Marcel Dekker, 2010). The following is the list of Crawford's challenges:

• Speed and patience
• Leadership from the bottom up
• A systems thinking approach
• Enterprise-wide systems
• Knowledge management
• Learning and learned project organizations
• Open communications

Speed and Patience

To effectively deploy a PSO can require two to five years for full implementation. That is a long time. According to the Standish Group research, the longer the project, the higher the probability of project failure. The way out of this apparent dilemma is to plan the PSO deployment in stages. Each stage must deliver visible and measurable value to the organization. To do otherwise is to court disaster.

Leadership from the Bottom Up

A major strategy in putting a PSO in place is a bottom-up strategy. At the department or project level, you will have to demonstrate value by showing the results that a PSO can achieve. By way of example then, others in the organization will see that success and ask how they can do it in their own areas. This grass roots effort will be contagious and will be one of the keys to a successful ...