Case Study Analysis: Challenges and Recommendations for AtekPC's PMO

This case study analyzes AtekPC's Operation Management Program, focusing on the challenges of implementing a Project Management Office (PMO). The report identifies problems such as the lack of formal documentation, inadequate resource planning, and the debate between PMO-Heavy and PMO-Light models. It assesses the situation, considering the changing PC industry and the need for improved project management. The study explores the PMO-Heavy and PMO-Light models as alternatives and recommends strategies to overcome barriers, including management support, clear objectives, cost considerations, and effective project planning. The conclusion emphasizes the importance of PMO implementation for success in the IT field and the long-term benefits of effective project management. The report offers valuable insights into the development and deployment of a successful PMO within an organization, providing a detailed analysis of the case, recommendations, and potential solutions.

Running head: CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
Name of the university
Name of the student
Author note

1CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
The problems..............................................................................................................................2
Assessment of the situation........................................................................................................3
The alternatives..........................................................................................................................3
PMO heavy model..................................................................................................................3
PMO-light model...................................................................................................................4
Recommendations......................................................................................................................4
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................5
References..................................................................................................................................7

2CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
Introduction
The report consists of the analysis of the Operation Management Program that was
planned to be launched by the AtekPC. The major objective of the essay is to analyze the
causes of the problem and put forward an effective recommendation for the same. The
company had some vision and goals in the mind before launching this. The mission of the
company has been evaluated briefly in the report and the process of dealing the problems and
the way of erasing the problems are dealt and included in the report.
The problems
The PC industry was witnessing terrible change. The CEO of the AteckPC Company
was thinking of bringing a change in the process. He thought of launching a PMO that is
Project Management Office to make the projects faster and convenient for all. The company
was suffering from remarkable pressure on one hand and on the other hand the competitors
were increasing in the market. The company had to face a larger amount of competition in the
market. In order to compete with the changing industry the company thought of
implementing a corporate planning office. In order to make this plan turn into action they
selected an ideal PMO model for their company. This was designed within IT. The company
at present is facing various challenges in the development and the deployment of a project
management office within the company. The biggest challenges and obstacles in
implementing the PMO was the formal documentation and plans for PMO did not exist. The
planning of the strategy was not done in an organized manner and there was lack of planning.
There was a massive shortage of the resource planning and PMO expert resources. There was
a serious problem between the PMO-Heavy model and PMO-Light model. These were the
main obstacles of the program (Crawford 2014).

3CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
Assessment of the situation
The changes that were brought in the environment of the business brought the
emergence of introducing a PMO within the company. On one hand it is the central point for
improvement and the enhancement in the project management which is possible through the
implementation of the functions which is enterprise-oriented. The enterprise-oriented
functions aim at strengthening the overall capability of the organization. It is intended
towards long-term benefits. The mission of the company is established and maintained by
meeting the need of fulfilling a historical database and by developing the best practices of
project management. It includes providing the training for the value of project management to
the organization. The company must make decision in the areas of cost reduction. This
further ensures then chance of getting a better project which would imply towards getting
better creative and adaptive process of launching new products (Fleming and Koppelman
2016).
The alternatives
The project management should never be a departmental strategy. It should be an
organizational strategy. It definitely must exist within the Information Technology
organization and it must ensure providing the project support for all the enterprise. The duties
of PMO are divided into two main categories that are project-oriented and enterprise oriented.
The project-oriented include the works like consulting, training, the concern of the success of
the individual progress and mentoring. Apart from this the enterprise-oriented things include
the improvement of the portfolio management, PM standards, tools and methods of the same.
The alternatives can be divided into two parts: PMO heavy model and PMO light model
(Schwalbe 2015).

4CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
PMO heavy model
The PMO heavy model will include the chance for the organization to have full staff
of project managers who would willingly and in an expert manner tackle the IT projects. it
further include the hiring of the project managers in order to manage all the work from
internal and external sources. It has been found that there aren`t enough manpower to move
fast. The company intends to increase the pace and make fast movement to survive in the
competitive market. The resistance of the employees has decreased due to the culture and
issue of governance (Larson and Gray 2013).
PMO-light model
In case of PMO-light model there are smaller amount of staffs are less comparatively
who are experts in working through the internal project managers in order to perform the
responsibilities of the PMO. While the business resources are available it is becoming a threat
for the AtekPC. With the help of the PMO light they are lined up in a better manner in terms
of the resource numbers and the better balance of the resources. In the extreme situation the
PMO-light has all the projects that are being operated outside the PMO under an existing
organizational controls and it includes the ownership of the projects that is resided within the
functional area and IT group charged with the execution of the project (Hill 2013).
Recommendations
The barriers and the loopholes of the organization can be eradicated through the
implication of certain strategies.
The first and foremost improvement that has to be done is the realization of the
management that since it is something new in this industry it is not possible to get
acceptance immediately. It will take some time for the users to accept the new policy.
There is need for PMO to improve itself in order to earn the resources that they

5CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
claimed. There is an immediate need of building a strong support for the heavy PMO
approach (Spalek 2013).
The objective and mission of PMO needs to be understood more clearly. It should be
understood that the objective of implementing the PMO is to deliver the successful IT
projects and understand the maturity of the project management at the organizational
level.
The company must also understand the problem of cost. It is a costly process and such
a risk should be taken only when the investors are confident about the system. The
cost of the program is huge and it should be made successful by applying proper cost
strategy keeping in mind the revenue of the company (Wood, Chileshe and Shelbourn
2016).
The success of the projects completely relies on the factors that are being
implemented and the integration of the customers, the software vendors, manager of
the scope of the project and the implementer. The benefit of the project should be
analyzed from before-hand and they should be properly planned and well-controlled.
They should be monitored by applying an effective process (Too and Weaver 2014.).
The planning can be effective if all the projects can be managed through the process
of PMO. It will be systematic and will head towards unique system service.
Certain metrics should be introduced that can measure the expectation of the
stakeholder from the PMO performance and it can be related to the vision and mission
of AtekPC (Bredillet, Tywoniak and Tootoonchy 2017).
Conclusion
While concluding, this can be stated that It has made a remarkable improvement in
the programming field and all the PC company must seek the help of the project

6CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
management office to establish itself in this sector and make a remarkable position in the
market. The cost budget function requires and allocation method for the funding method.
However from the analysis of the above aspects this can fairly be stated that the long-term
benefits of the implementation of the PMO should be factored in order to estimate the
future value that can be added to the organization. The change in the PC industry can be
introduced only through the PMO. It should be emergent program within the IT that can
bring success in the IT field.

7CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
References
Bredillet, C., Tywoniak, S. and Tootoonchy, M., 2017. Exploring the dynamics of project
management office and portfolio management co-evolution: A routine lens. International
Journal of Project Management.
Crawford, J.K., 2014. Project management maturity model. CRC Press.
Fleming, Q.W. and Koppelman, J.M., 2016, December. Earned value project management.
Project Management Institute.
Hill, G.M., 2013. The complete project management office handbook. CRC Press.
Larson, E.W. and Gray, C., 2013. Project Management: The Managerial Process with MS
Project. McGraw-Hill.
Pemsel, S. and Wiewiora, A., 2013. Project management office a knowledge broker in
project-based organisations. International Journal of Project Management, 31(1), pp.31-42.
Schwalbe, K., 2015. Information technology project management. Cengage Learning.
Spalek, S., 2013. Improving industrial engineering performance through a successful project
management office.
Too, E.G. and Weaver, P., 2014. The management of project management: A conceptual
framework for project governance. International Journal of Project Management, 32(8),
pp.1382-1394.
Wood, A., Chileshe, N. and Shelbourn, M., 2016. The project management office: Issues in
deployment of PMOs in Australia.