Do PMOs Destroy Productivity? Finding the Balance Between Chaos and Bureaucracy

About this webinar

Could your PMO give teams more control by controlling less? Michael Hannan rejects the supposed choice between chaos and bureaucracy. Using visible schedule buffers and two projects competing for a scarce specialist, he shows how teams can coordinate directly instead of waiting for a manager to arbitrate. With Stuart Easton, he pushes the idea further: what if leadership served delivery rather than overseeing it?

What you’ll hear

• Think like an investor, not a process inspector. Mike challenges the conventional PMO role: projects consume organisational resources and are expected to create value in return. He wants PMOs to focus on increasing that value, not just administering delivery standards.
• Why 20 days of work can become a 40-day schedule. When responsible people each build protection into their estimates, hidden padding accumulates. Mike shows how a shared, visible schedule buffer lets teams spot trouble and act before deadlines are missed.
• Two projects, one specialist. Who gets help first? Mike uses the relative health of each project's buffer to show how teams can resolve a resource conflict themselves, without waiting for a manager to arbitrate.
• Flip the org chart. Stuart contrasts status meetings that interrogate project teams with leaders asking what support they need. Mike goes further: finance, marketing and other senior specialists should provide expertise that helps teams succeed, rather than simply exercise authority over them.
• Autonomy needs shared priorities. Stuart argues that people need clear, prioritised business goals to organise their work without constant escalation. Mike recalls initially arguing that time spent on prioritisation would be better spent executing, before recognising the value of agreeing what really matters.
• Don't build bureaucracy into your scale-up. Mike questions why a growing organisation should automatically put a manager above every ten people. He's more cautious about overturning established hierarchies, but argues that larger organisations can still give teams more useful signals and greater autonomy progressively.