Realizing Results With an EPMO

I recently received an interesting comment that I would like to share my thoughts on. I was asked “what if the attitude of most employees and management is things just get done … if we can’t see how the work helps achieve some goal we shouldn’t do it.” This is a typical frustration managers have to respond to when striving to gain commitment and budget to establish, or even continue, an EPMO within an organization. If individuals, especially executives, cannot connect their own work to the outcome or requirements of an EPMO, then they won’t support spending budget on it. An EPMO is established to provide holistic oversight of interrelated programs and to increase efficiencies of how programs are managed. The ability for an EPMO to be successful is tied directly to its ability to meet leadership requirements and expectations. Managers can only measure those activities that they have defined as performance requirements. Research has shown that processes and tools only provide 30% toward an EPMO’s success. The balance comes from having a solid value proposition (20%) and leadership approval and support (50%). The key performance indicators (KPIs) that are tracked and reported by the EPMO to demonstrate its ability to achieve leadership’s goals and objectives must be carefully and thoughtfully defined and designed. The ability to measure those KPIs and then report measurements back to leadership is what will result in determining if an EPMO is successful or not, along with maintaining commitment and budget. It all boils down to knowing what is important to your leadership and connecting the EPMO back to those important requirements.



The views expressed on this blog are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer, Robbins-Gioia.