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Project Office

A Project Management Office (PMO) is a group or department within an organization that is responsible for defining and maintaining project management processes, standards, methods and tools. The PMO serves as a centralized resource for project management, and its main purpose is to increase project success by improving the coordination, efficiency and quality of project work.

It is surprisingly easy to create a PMO in the Ln4 cloud solution where digital services are designed for each role in a matrix organization. All roles should optimize the use of working time. Here, the working hour is the lowest common denominator. The usually cumbersome resource planning process is almost completely eliminated and replaced by each person planning his or her own working time as a participant in consultation with project managers and business owners - normally on a weekly basis or in a schedule. The role of the line manager is to approve the planned occupancy when the working hours are within the projects' budget and timeframe.

The virtual PMO created in the cloud solution is a mirror image of the real operational organization. A few simple steps lead to a complete picture of the organization's structure, with each employee linked to a cost center with a named manager and budget, etc. and each project and activity also linked to a business area and cost center/portfolio with budget, etc.

Step 1. Load all persons with their cost center and working time contract.

Step 2. Enter all projects with cost center/portfolio for which the working time can be used.

Step 3. Send an email to each person with a link to the service. They can create passwords to log in to their dialogs to start linking to current projects to plan their working hours. Each person has their own responsibility to plan to stay busy and use their working hours for budgeted tasks. Some organizations have also set aside working hours for 'own time' for training, studies, etc.  

The process of allocating resources to projects is almost completely eliminated. The role of the line manager is to confirm the planning already done by project managers and staff. The line manager's responsibility is to ensure that the cost center's people have the right proportion of working time to spend on value-creating projects. It is common for the line organization not to have its own projects, but to provide expertise to an agreed extent. The implication of this planning is that project managers get their resources while line managers know exactly when each resource will be released from the projects they are involved in.

The cloud solution from Ln4 Solutions achieves the following:

  • Full control of resource capacity and occupancy planning against projects within four to six calendar weeks.
  • Within four to six calendar months, all projects will apply ISO21500 governance and progress reporting.