Components of a PMO - Part 4 - Desktop Tools

Components of a PMO - Part 4 - Desktop ToolsThis is part 4 of a series of blog posts in which I look at the components of a PMO and give you a pragmatic way to increase your PMO success and improve your PM maturity.

Every company has some form of special tools that project managers and project team members use in their day to day project activities. A few examples:

  • MS Project (desktop installation)
  • MS Project viewer
  • MS Visio (flowcharts)
  • Time tracking software
  • Requirements tracking software
  • Design tools
  • Etc.

The reason why I have chosen to group these tools as one of the 4 components of a Project Management Office is twofold:

  • First, it is what I find in the field. Much of our project work orbits around these tools or gravitates back to them.
  • Second, each of these tools is highly important in the success of the project. The information that we create during brainstorming sessions, meetings and project discussions is often input into these tools and then creates a necessary project output. These outputs are either required by the followed methodology, are used as a measure for the project success or are the basis of the overall management of the project itself.

What is important for us who design the PMO and PM processes in an organization is that we acknowledge these tools, know what they are and do, and that we integrate them into the final design of the processes. Our company has invested a lot of money and time into these tools. By including them into the overall PMO infrastructure we ensure that we fully use the existing IT infrastructure and maximize past investment.

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