Building a High-Impact PMO
Speakers
Tony helps organizations turn strategy into execution. With 35+ years in project leadership and AI-enabled transformation, he builds high-performing PMOs that align portfolios to business goals, accelerate delivery, and prove value. He is the author of The Digital Project Playbook and a long-time educator and mentor.
Stuart helps PMO and portfolio leaders build strategy-aligned portfolios and prove ROI. A guest lecturer on project prioritization at the University of Oxford, he speaks widely on killing pet projects, focusing investment on value, and using decision science (AHP) to make clear, defensible choices.
About this webinar
Dr Tony Prensa and host Stuart Easton unpack what makes a high-impact PMO: a PMO that enables strategy, accelerates delivery, and proves business value. They argue that PMOs fail for one primary reason—failure to demonstrate value— and that executives care far more about outcomes than activity or methodology.
The session stresses co-creation with leadership. PMO leaders shouldn’t wait for a perfectly packaged strategy; they must proactively discover it—by speaking with executives and stakeholders, reading strategy materials, and synthesizing signals—then translate that intent into portfolio choices and delivery guardrails. The PMO “builds the road” the business drives on: it doesn’t own every outcome, but it ensures the route to value is clear, efficient, and continually improved.
Tony offers a practical path: start with a clear vision and mandate; deeply understand how the business creates value; establish governance and structure; grow via a maturity roadmap; pick a small set of outcome-based KPIs/OKRs that leaders actually care about; and operationalize portfolio prioritization, capacity alignment, benefits realization, risk management, and executive decision support . Above all, stay adaptable (“be like water”) and cross-functional—the PMO should be a go-to hub for ideas and problems, not a back-office function.
What you’ll learn
- How to define a high-impact PMO that enables strategy and proves business value.
- Why PMOs most often fail (not demonstrating value) and how to fix that.
- Practical ways to uncover and communicate strategy with executives and stakeholders.
- A step-by-step framework: mandate → governance → maturity roadmap → outcome KPIs.
- How portfolio prioritization and capacity alignment turn strategy into delivery.
- How to position the PMO as execution enablement (the “road”) while sponsors drive outcomes.