PMO-as-a-Service

We worked with a global leader in energy, digital and industrial transformation, and facilities management, to help them set up a Programme Management Office (PMO) and we now manage this PMO function as an outsourced service.

Our client had experienced ongoing business growth over the years due to its continued success; and was expecting a further significant and rapid growth with the acquisition of another company. To enable progression, a number of change projects were underway across the organisation. These projects were being led by various departments and in isolation of each other; which led to increased variation and inconsistency, diseconomies of scale, reduced visibility of the interdependencies and outcomes, and increased complexity.

An initial review identified that there were over 200 projects underway across the organisation at that given point in time, the majority of projects were in ‘initial concept’ stage, and only 2% of the projects were in had been adopted across the organisation. The impact of this was change saturation and fatigue, excess costs and delays, and a lack of demonstrable Return-on-Investment (ROI).

To improve the way in which change projects were being delivered and the associated benefits being realised, it was imperative that all change projects were coordinated centrally. CI Projects developed a PMO, including all tools, templates, processes, governance protocols and a bespoke SharePoint site to make it easy for Project Managers to navigate their way through the new process. We developed clear definitions for a ‘project’ and decision making criteria to ensure consistency and effectiveness. We established a Business Transformation Board and associated terms of reference to ensure that there was effective governance and decision making. The role of the Board was to provide a simple and effective way for business transformation projects to be prioritised, delivered consistently and adopted across the organisation to achieve the organisation’s Business Plan year on year. Finally, we set up a PowerBI dashboard providing full visibility of performance in real-time and delivered internal training and webinars to familiarise the business with the new requirements and associated benefits. We specifically focused on training project sponsors on their roles as sponsors as this was critical to success.

The objectives of the PMO were:
• To reduce the number of transformation projects underway across the business, focusing on our strategic priorities and breaking silos and eliminating duplication;
• To deliver transformation projects effectively
• To increase the level of change adoption;
• To demonstrate Return-on-Investment and deliver measurable value to the business.

Upon launch of the PMO, we rationalised the list of over 200 projects down to under 30 high priority projects and ensured they were all resourced effectively. We instantly started to see benefits of the newly formed PMO, including reduced duplication of efforts, better defined projects and solutions, and articulate benefits with robust metrics for measurement.

Initial benefits include:

•  Reduction in projects by 85% to ensure prioritisation and alignment with strategic objectives
• Integration with the company’s employee suggestion scheme so that opportunities identified by employees had the ability to be scaled up business-wide, with 4 ideas being taken forward within the first year
• Increased on-time project delivery by 88%
• Increased cost capture and improved budget management, with 100% of projects being delivered within budget within the first year
• Over £200k benefits demonstrated within the first 9 months
• Other soft benefits were demonstrated, including 100% of energy projects using HVO, 187 tCO2e saved and improvements in employee retention rate by 8%

Find out more about our PMO as a Service here.