Project management is a discipline loaded with acronyms: PMP, PRINCE2, CPM, WBS, PMBOK, PMI… and about 150 others. Whether or not you’re a project manager by title, one acronym you’re sure to hear more often is PMO. “What is PMO?” you might ask. PMO stands for “project management office.” Project management offices have exploded…

A few months ago I wrote about the structure of the project management office or PMO. In that article I referenced the concept of the ad hoc PMO — one that’s formed to meet a specific goal, such as for training project managers or performing an audit on a portfolio of projects. What I didn’t…

Project Management Institute (PMI)® Professional Development Units (PDUs): This Webinar is eligible for 1 PMI® PDU in the Leadership Category of the Talent Triangle. Event Description: Is your company building a PMO? Have you been asked to lead the charge? Do you have any idea where to start? Well, you are in luck because Bill Dow,…

Is it possible that in an organization with weak or limited project sponsor capability, the project management office (PMO) could act as a sponsor for smaller projects? It is surely better to do this rather than not use sponsors at all. If a particular project is in direct support of the organization’s project practices (e.g.,…

Many organizations have contemplated or implemented program management as a means of managing inter-related projects within their organization, with varying degrees of success. For the purposes of this article we refer to a Program Management Office (PgMO) as a vehicle which can be used to manage the life-cycle of a specific program or, if a…

The topic of agile and project management generates a lot of interest among project managers. It may be that PMs are boggled by managing IT projects that don’t adhere to the standard waterfall method of development. After all, if a team of developers is talking with users and getting together every week to reprioritize what’s…

Project managers just want to get the job done. That’s the overriding theme that emerges from this year’s most read articles on MPUG.com. Among popular topics: selling executives on project management, communicating the project plan, putting together a project management office that’s highly effective, and tips and trends. 1. The Seven Deadly Sins of Project…

The project management office or PMO can provide multiple functions within an organization. It can help monitor and control project performance, develop project management competencies and methodologies, manage multiple projects, manage strategy, and perform project management skills training. Yet PMOs come in multiple sizes and styles. In this article I share the types of PMOs…

The head of an international project management consultancy lays out a plan for helping project managers engage with senior leaders to build a project management culture that adds real value to business performance. Over the course of 21 years in working with organizations to get projects delivered, programs off the ground, and portfolios pared down…

The following is an excerpt from Eric Uyttewaal’s new book, Forecast Scheduling with Microsoft Project 2010. The “Schedule” Most people understand the schedule as a list of deliverables and their due dates. To a professional scheduler that list of deliverables and their due dates is not the schedule, but the baseline schedule. The baseline schedule…