Product Description

The effective management of project portfolios that include numerous short-term projects, large multi-project programs, or both has become a growing challenge for industry, government, and other institutions. The Program Management Office is a guide to satisfying the needs for improved coordination, standardization, optimization, and management of project portfolios and the general practice of project management. It details the role and function of the PMO, processes for establishing and managing a PMO, and the three primary missions the PMO should serve to bring maximum value to organizations.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #67041 in Books
• Published on: 2006-10-04
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 388 pages

-- Gerald Kendall, PMO Expert and Best-Selling Author, TOC International
"The strategic and practical guidance is excellent. It will help deliver maximum value to both new and established PMOs."

About the Author
Craig J. Letavec currently serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the PMI Program Management Office (PMO) Specific Interest Group. He is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) and earned his Master of Science degree in Project Management from George Washington University. Craig has been actively involved in information technology project management for the majority of his professional career. He has held a variety of information technology and project management positions with organizations including Siemens Business Services, Hewlett-Packard and Procter & Gamble. In addition to the practice of project management, Craig actively teaches future project managers and business professionals as an adjunct faculty member in the MBA Project Management program at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, and often speaks to project management audiences on topics such as PMO development and management, managing project change, organizational project management maturity, and quantitative risk management.

Customer Reviews

Detailed advice on PMO implementation
First I would like to warn you that this is one of the last books I have read on PMOs so I might be slightly biased compared to someone for whom it is the first book on the subject.
This book provides a very (maybe too) detailed guide regarding a PMO implementation. Nothing really new is presented, but it provides some useful tips such as table of contents for the base and detailed business case, overcoming resistance. It presents three PMO models: standards, knowledge or consulting organization.

A good, comprehensive textbook on PMOs
This books has been pretty valuable to me on my latest project. I'm a PMP who has done a lot of project management, but I've this was the first time I had to setup a PMO from scratch. With that task in mind, I started scraping together all of the PMO resources I could find. I located this book on Amazon and, after reading a few reviews, purchased it along with a few others.

First, the information in the book is well organized and the chapters are clear and concise. The first half of the book describes the process and requirements of setting up a PMO while the second half discusses PMO operations and on-going challenges after it is up and running. It didn't take long for me to rip the information from the first few chapters and develop a clear step-by-step plan for my project.

Normally, I find these textbooks complete snooze-fests but this one wasn't too bad. Either Craig Letavec did a great job in writing the book or my fear of tanking the project overcame my textbook-induced narcolepsy. Either way, I got what I needed from the material. Recommended.

Works for me
Well done overall... walks you through how to develop your business case and sell the PMO, which is helpful if you have to do the selling like I did. Good coverage of practical items on how to start-up the PMO, what to focus on, how to develop a plan, common mistakes, and so forth. If you read from front to back, you more or less get a walk-through of PMO planning, implementation, and operation.

The second part of the book talks about roles of the PMO in several different areas (knowledge, consulting, and standards are the broad topics). The standards portion was most relevant for me as our PMO is expected to develop and enforce entrprise-wide PM practices. It gave me what I needed to know to get a good plan together. The knowledge and consulting sections were good reads as well--just not immediate focus areas for me personally.

So, to me, it was more complete than other PMO books I've seen without drowning me in detail. The website companion templates and so forth were good as well but expanding them would help. Hard to complain since they're free.