PMO Assessment in 5 Steps

A PMO assessment measures how well the project management office fulfils its mandate: a common method, portfolio visibility, alignment with strategy and value delivery. The result is a score by dimension and an action plan with an owner, a deadline and a completion criterion. This article describes the assessment in 5 steps, from inviting respondents to the action plan, and the mistakes that undermine the result.

Why the PMO needs an assessment

The PMO (project management office) is a common structure and a frequently questioned one. Two Project Management Institute (PMI) studies record this tension:

• in the report The impact of PMOs on strategy implementation, PMI, 2013, about 70% of surveyed organizations had a PMO, compared with 61% in 2006;
• in the same report, only 33% of respondents said their PMO had realized its full potential in contributing business value;
• in the study A realistic portrait of PMOs, by Brian Hobbs and Monique Aubry, 2005, covering 255 PMOs, 39% of respondents said the relevance or existence of their PMO had been seriously questioned in recent years.

The data are dated and come from international samples. They do not measure today’s PMOs. They show a pattern: having a PMO does not guarantee perceived value. The assessment separates the structure from the function and shows which function is missing.

The link between the PMO and maturity levels is covered in PMO and project maturity. This article focuses on running the assessment.

What a PMO assessment evaluates

The assessment combines three elements:

1. Reference model. Defines dimensions and levels. Examples: Prado-MMGP, a Brazilian project management maturity model, and PMI’s OPM3 for organizational project management.
2. Respondents. Sponsors, project managers and PMO staff. Each group sees the office from a different angle.
3. Evidence. Schedules, portfolio meeting minutes, status reports and lessons learned records. Evidence confirms or corrects each answer.

Did you know? In PMI’s 2013 report, PMOs frequently involved in aligning projects with strategic objectives were nearly twice as likely to be high performers: 21%, against 12% for those rarely involved.

How to run the assessment in 5 steps

1. Define scope and model

Write the assessment question in one sentence. Example: “is the PMO ready to take over portfolio prioritization?”. Choose the project maturity model and list the dimensions to assess. Define who answers for each dimension.

2. Invite respondents

Send each respondent an individual invitation with a deadline and the purpose of the assessment. State that the object of assessment is the process, not the person. Individual answers give each group room to record its own view, without the influence of whoever speaks loudest in a meeting.

3. Consolidate the score by dimension

Calculate the score of each dimension, not only the overall average. The average hides the weakest dimension. Compare the answers across groups: when sponsors and project managers disagree, the disagreement is a finding and goes into the report.

4. Draft the report

Organize the report in four parts: executive summary, score by dimension, strengths and weaknesses, and the gap between the current level and the level required by the question from step 1. AI-based tools can draft the report and the SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats). The draft still needs human review.

5. Review and build the action plan

The person running the assessment checks the draft against the evidence and builds the action plan in the 5W2H format: what, why, where, when, who, how and how much. Each action gets a named owner, a deadline and a completion criterion. Select 3 to 5 actions for the weakest dimension. An action plan without a named owner does not get executed.

In practice: PMO assessment checklist

1. Assessment question written in one sentence.
2. Reference model chosen and dimensions listed.
3. Individual invitation sent to sponsors, project managers and PMO staff.
4. Score calculated by dimension, with disagreements between groups recorded.
5. Report reviewed against the evidence.
6. 3 to 5 actions with owner, deadline and completion criterion.
7. Date of the next measurement scheduled.

Mistakes that undermine a PMO assessment

• Hearing only the PMO staff. The office would be grading its own work. Sponsors and project managers balance the result.
• Assessing deliverables instead of function. Counting reports produced does not show whether the portfolio is prioritized by strategy.
• Demanding the whole next level at once. The plan addresses the next step of the weakest dimension, not every dimension at the same time.
• Publishing the draft without review. Tool-generated text does not know the organization’s context. Review checks each statement against the evidence.
• Not measuring again. Without a second measurement there is no way to know whether the plan worked.

Frequently asked questions

Who should run the PMO assessment?

Someone who knows the reference model and has no direct responsibility for the results being assessed. It can be someone outside the PMO, a quality team or an external consultant. The requirement is independence when reading the evidence.

How many respondents does the assessment need?

At least one respondent from each group: sponsors, project managers and PMO staff. More respondents per group reduce the weight of a single view and make disagreements easier to see.

How often should the PMO assessment be repeated?

Common practice is every 6 to 12 months. The interval should allow the plan’s actions to be completed and be short enough to guide the next cycle.