Why Some PMOs Are Fading Out and How Others Are Becoming Indispensable

About this webinar

Some PMOs are losing executive support while others are becoming more influential. Ray Jaffe draws on his experience leading PMOs in divisions of Wells Fargo and at First Data and Canon to explain the difference. Stuart Easton suggests the apparent decline and resurgence are not one cycle but two populations: tactical PMOs losing ground and value-oriented PMOs growing.

Keep delivery discipline without becoming administrative overhead

Ray describes PMOs in the mid-2000s as focused on documentation, control, consistency and project delivery. Many were created because delivery had gone wrong, and the discipline was needed. But between roughly 2010 and 2020, he saw digital transformation, fast-changing priorities and pressure to reach the market more quickly change executive expectations. PMOs that demanded extensive documentation and audits without demonstrating business value increasingly looked like overhead, sometimes, Ray acknowledges, with justification.

The answer is not to abandon project management. Ray argues that different projects need different tools, and that tools used by practitioners need not be what executives see. A project manager may need a thousand-line plan, but putting it in front of executives is unlikely to demonstrate the PMO's worth. Nor is handing someone a project-management manual a convincing way to introduce a PMO. Leadership needs a clear account of what the work is achieving, not an inventory of the team's paperwork.

Ray's division-level team at Wells Fargo created a delivery PMO that the business appreciated for its attention to projects and results. He contrasts it with an enterprise PMO that added document audits, prescribed templates and process requirements. In his account, those demands turned business leaders away from working with project management. A discipline meant to support delivery became an obstacle to engagement.

Start with business goals, then work out which initiatives serve them

At Canon, Ray led both corporate strategic planning and the PMO, giving him a direct connection between the organisation's three-to-five-year plan and its project portfolio. He argues that executives often know the broad aims they want to achieve, such as growing a particular business channel. The harder question is which initiatives will actually deliver those aims, and whether the organisation is making the right choices about its work.

Stuart draws out a different but related distinction. When PMO leaders say executives do not know what they want, they may mean executives cannot specify the PMO services they need. Citing advice from Laura Barnard, Stuart argues that the PMO should ask about business problems and desired outcomes rather than expect leadership to design its services. Ray adds that executives do not always agree on how to make best use of a PMO or recognise the value it could provide.

For Ray, choosing the right work comes before polishing its delivery. He argues that perfectly executing work with little strategic relevance delivers far less value than imperfectly executing an initiative that matters to the business. A PMO should therefore make the connection between strategic objectives and proposed projects explicit. Ray says that good prioritisation and alignment reduce the need for project managers to persuade teams that the work matters. When people understand why they are doing it, tools and processes become easier to use. He also warns that getting things wrong at the outset can create rework and wasted effort.

Earn trust and make strategic planning a two-way conversation

Ray does not assume that a PMO's influence comes automatically from its reporting line. PMO leaders need relationships, business understanding and a record of doing what they promise. They also need to observe what is happening across the organisation and use that knowledge constructively. A formal seat at the leadership table helps; without one, credibility and relationships become even more important.

Ray sees strategy and portfolio management as a feedback loop, not just instructions flowing downwards. Executives establish priorities; the PMO helps assess and deliver initiatives; and its cross-functional perspective can reveal connections or opportunities that an individual department might miss. He recalls project managers spotting worthwhile additional improvements while delivering existing work and raising those ideas with sponsors. That is the kind of contribution he wants a mature PMO to make: bringing new possibilities back for leadership to assess, not just reporting progress against decisions already made.

Protect outcomes when projects and portfolios come under pressure

Stuart distinguishes two broad sources of value. Project execution protects the value expected from work that has been selected. In Stuart's model, even perfect execution can deliver at most 100% of that selected potential; it cannot make a poor choice of projects valuable. Portfolio decisions about strategic alignment and resource allocation can raise the potential itself, particularly when they uncover opportunities beyond the original projects. This helps explain Ray's experience of project teams identifying additional business improvements while they work. Stuart also connects better portfolio choices to benefits realisation and reducing overload. Ray adds that a stretched PMO may need to question what is in the portfolio, rather than simply demand more from its teams.

The discussion then turns from portfolio choices to a different decision: how to protect a project's value when its budget or deadline is at risk. Stuart asks whether to cut scope to stay on plan or discuss additional time and money with the sponsor to protect the outcome. Ray generally favours the sponsor discussion but insists on weighing what is lost or gained. At First Data, where payment technology was changing quickly, getting to market early could itself be valuable enough to justify releasing a smaller scope. The sensible trade-off depends on the benefits retained, the cost and delay involved, and the business context. Ray also wants emerging problems raised early, before a project reported as healthy suddenly becomes critical.

What would make a PMO indispensable?

Ray envisages a PMO moving from an administrative function towards a business-development role: using its visibility across functions to identify new opportunities and bring them to leadership, rather than merely administer or prioritise work already assigned to it. Stuart wants PMOs to become more commercial in how they demonstrate and communicate their contribution to results, and he imagines a broader strategy-delivery function that connects projects, transformation and business-as-usual operations.

They differ over how far a narrowly positioned PMO can take that ambition. Stuart argues that a PMO within one function can still improve alignment and value within that function. Ray accepts that local contribution but cautions that limited visibility across the business makes his wider opportunity-creation vision harder to realise.