State of the PMO 2016: Some Highlights from Our Newest Research
Nearly half of PMOs now report directly to the C-level.
We just finished crunching the numbers for our 2016 update of our signature biennial research study, The State of the PMO. For those who have been following the progress of the PMO for the past several years, some of the findings are unsurprising: the percentage of companies with PMOs continues to climb (up 5% from 2014), while the organizational status of the PMO also improves steadily: nearly half now report directly to the C-level.
This last data point both explains and contributes to the trend that shows PMOs increasingly participating in strategy execution functions. In particular, the PMOs in the subset of "high-performing" organizations in the study are much more likely to pefform functions such as providing advice to executives, doing enterprise risk management, and strategic project ROI validation.
Another continuing trend: as the average number of projects per organization increases, the budget per project continues to fall. This indicates that companies have learned to chunk programs into smaller bites, the better to monitor and control them. Doubtless the continuing adoption of agile practices contributes to this trend as well.
That's just a teaser: the full report will be released in about two weeks, to be followed by a webinar exploring the results. Stay tuned!
About the Author
Jeannette Cabanis-Brewin
Jeannette Cabanis-Brewin is editor-in-chief for PM Solutions Research, and the author, co-author and editor of over twenty books on project management, including the 2007 PMI Literature Award winner, The AMA Handbook of Project Management, Second Edition.
View Posts by Jeannette Cabanis-Brewin
Jeannette Cabanis-Brewin
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