The EMO - The Latest Trend For PMOs

From December 8-10 this year I attended the PMO Summit 2008 in Coconut Grove Florida. I had been asked by IQPC to chair the event and I accepted gladly. It gave me the opportunity to travel to a new city, I got to meet a lot of people and I also learned a lot. Oh... and I had one of the best Italian meals in the last 5 years.

If you would like to see my complete review on the event, then please stop by at The PM Podcast Episode 111 and watch the video.

One interesting trend that was discussed is the EMO - The Everything Management Office. This trend was mainly supported by a presentation given by Terry Doerscher from Planview. Planview had done a very in-depth PMO Survey and one of the interesting results was that 33% of the responding PMOs were managing the big strategic projects, 33% were also managing the smaller projects and the other 33% were managing not just the strategic and smaller projects, but everything else as well.

This last third of the pie is what I call the EMO (Everything Management Office). We discussed the concept at the Summit but there was no name for it yet. So I figured that I had better come up with a good descriptive name for the concept. Here is what an EMO does (with thanks to Terry for the imagery):

Imagine an iceberg.

We all know that only about 10% of the iceberg sticks out of the water. In respect to projects in your company, this visible part represents your strategic projects. Those are the projects that directly support your corporation's vision and strategic goals. Below the surface you will have your major projects, smaller projects, the we-have-to-do-this-stuff-as-well-but-we-don't-call-it-a-project projects and finally your day to day work.

In regards to the EMO we now see a trend that the complete iceberg falls under it's authority. Everything that we do in our company will be managed by the Everything Management Office. Your sales process, writing invoices, support calls, resource management, you name it.

This EMO approach has it's good and bad sides; The good is that the complete value stream of work that we do in our company is aligned and the pieces of the puzzle fit together. The customer has a unified experience with us. The processes are all following best practices, are documented and it's therefore easier to transfer them to new resources. The bad is of course that this may lead to an overly bureaucratic approach and we may not take advantage of the skills that our employees bring to the table because they simply follow "a script". Thus, the EMO has to walk the fine line of ensuring that it is guiding and not prescribing the work.

I'm looking forward to seeing where this trend leads and if EMO will be the accepted term to describe it...

The survey will be available from the Planview website early 2009 and we will also have an interview on The Project Management Podcast with Terry Doerscher.