INTRODUCTION

Chapter 1 will introduce several concepts related to the program management office (PMO) and will provide an overview of the potential opportunity areas in which the PMO can provide value to an organization. Chapter 1 will then focus on the process of assessing the organization from a project management perspective, documenting current challenges and improvement opportunities in the organization and developing a PMO base business case. The base business case can then be presented to management for the purposes of informing management about the opportunities that the PMO can provide and requesting authorization to proceed with development of a detailed business case and a roadmap for establishing a PMO in the organization. Organization may represent an entire company, a division within a company, a specific region, or another subunit within a larger entity that the PMO will serve. Even if the scope of the PMO is relatively small, certain benefits provided by the PMO may be extended beyond its primary constituents and thereby provide value to a broader segment of the overall organization. Whether the PMO is intended to serve the organization as a whole or to serve only one department within the organization, understanding the key project and program management challenges and documenting how the PMO can address these challenges is a critical first step toward achieving an effective PMO.