Trends in Project Management Offices

Project Management Offices Trends
Luis, Manager, China
I see the following trends in project management offices:
- Help the organization to implement a new PM-methodology
- Manage or supervise large scale projects
- More governance in project management areas
- Experience and best practice sharing.

Trends in PMO's
Eleni Magkli, Manager, Switzerland
- Project Management Offices to climb higher in the corporate strategies of companies.
- Focus on the soft skills more rather than the tools & techniques.
- Automate the activities and use the PM's mostly for stakeholder management and buy-in.
- Manage cross-functional, international projects.
- Better understanding of the R&R of all involved.
- Agility
- Portfolio management will matter more than ever.
- PMO to drive innovation and change management.

Trends in PMO's
Paul D Giammalvo, Professor and Consultant, Indonesia
Sorry but I have yet to see any truly "successful" PMO's and I seriously doubt I ever will.

Why not? Because in an OWNER organization projects are nothing more than the means to an end. In owner organizations, projects are COST or INVESTMENT centers, not profit centers, as they are for CONTRACTORS. For owner organizations, the focus is not on the project but on the PRODUCT of the project- what the project was undertaken to achieve or accomplish. In the oil and gas sector, of the 20 or so financial attributes used to analyze a project, the COST of the project ranks towards the bottom.

Because owner organizations are more focused on the product than they are on the project itself, most see little or no reason to spend even more money on a PMO in order to track and report on the project.