The No PM PMO

You don't need dedicated project managers to build effective PMO processes. We’ve written about the one-person PMO, let’s cover the no PM PMO.

If your organization is at the “We could use a bit of project management” tipping point it’s a logical to think you need to hire PMs before you can standardize a project approach. Don’t let that stop you, you can create consistency with "Project Leaders" instead.

These are the people who already have day jobs but get tapped to run specific projects. The key is giving them simple, standardized tools so they're not reinventing the wheel every time. Since these folks are not dedicated to a running projects, time efficient tooling is paramount.

Here's what we recommend:

 𝟭. 𝗕𝗮𝘀𝗶𝗰 𝘁𝗲𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁 - Charter, timeline, status report. Keep it to 3-4 core documents maximum. 

 • The charter can be a standard email that says “This is what we are doing and this is what we want at the end.” 

 • Status reports can double as action item and issue tracking. 

 • The timeline template is also your checklist for consistent engagement. 

My personal blind spot was always Training. The number of times I have engaged them way too late in a project is actually embarrassing. A timeline template can help solve issues like these.

 𝟮. 𝗢𝗿𝗴𝗮𝗻𝗶𝘇𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻-𝘄𝗶𝗱𝗲 𝗥𝗔𝗖𝗜 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗿𝗶𝘅 - One reference document that clarifies who does what across all projects. No guessing games. Set this up once so your project leaders never have to wonder things like “who can whitelist an IP?” or “who can approve X?”

 𝟯. 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗮𝗿𝗱𝗶𝘇𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼𝗼𝗹𝘀 - Pick something like Teams/SharePoint or Slack/Google Drive and stick with it. Tool switching kills adoption. Stick with things your teams use daily. Function > Form here.

 𝟰. 𝗖𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗮𝗹 - Single location where all project leaders can access templates, reference materials, and see what other projects are running.  Make it a 5m action to create a new copy of your templated tools.

The goal is to make project leadership as straightforward as possible for people who aren't doing it full-time. 

If your facilities manager gets asked to lead the office relocation project, they should be able to grab your standard toolkit and get moving without a steep learning curve.

This approach works especially well for organizations running 5-10 projects annually. You get the consistency benefits of a PMO without the overhead of dedicated headcount.

Simple enough to say, we know it's tougher to execute but the alternative is every project leader making it up as they go.