Critical Evaluation of the Project Management Office (PMO) at AtekPC

This essay provides a critical evaluation of the Project Management Office (PMO) at AtekPC. It begins by examining the reasons behind establishing a PMO, linking it to the company's struggles in a changing market, particularly the PC industry's decline. The essay then explores how AtekPC's organiz...Read More

Running head: Analysis of Project management office
Analysis of Project management office
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ANALYSIS OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT OFFICE
In order to ensure the business practices, procedures and operation will go in the right
direction, it is necessary for the organization to have a project management office. The
project management office (PMO) of the organization is a group, especially comprising with
the managerial level people (Pemsel & Wiewiora, 2013). The PMO can be external or
internal to the organization, which are responsible for setting, maintaining as well as ensuring
the project standards for the particular organization. In addition to that, it is responsible for
gathering repeatable, tangible and long term profit to the business (Too & Weaver, 2014). In
addition to that, for identifying as well as developing the necessary project management
methodology, standards and best practices the role of a project management office is well
understood (Špundak 2014). This essay is going to focus on the need of establishing a project
management office at AtekPC along with its culture and project management practices that
influenced the implementation of PMO. The agile philosophy in context to the organization is
going to be discussed. Lastly, the essay will also outline the issues that might encounter due
to the expansion of AtekPC’s project management office towards the non-IT projects.
AtekPC was found in the year 1984 and the growing popularity helped the
organization to reach at the maturing stage from the growing stage. The company has about
200 and 210 full time and part time employee respectively. Despite of evidencing noticeable
growth in past, same as other PC makers, this company also had to face struggles due to the
proliferation of modernized technologies, especially the mobile phones, web-based
applications and PDAs, hindered the popularity of PC. Due to this, the particular PC industry
was undergoing through consolidation and facing higher cost pressure. Therefore, the
managers of AtekPC came up with the idea of introducing the cost reduction strategy to their
business, and aimed that this strategy will be beneficial in improving their business operation
and supply chain.

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ANALYSIS OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT OFFICE
The main reason behind looking for the establishment of the project management
office is the degradation in the business functionalities. The PMOs are efficient in integrating
the information and data from a corporate strategic project and providing support to the
balanced score card (Jalal & Koosha 2015). In addition to that, it trains and monitors the
project managers, staffs and their activities. The immense cost pressure, inefficient business
strategies were resulted in the loosing of market position and reputation of the company
(Darling & Whitty, 2016). Hence, in order to get their position as well as business
sustainability back, it was vital for the organization to become comparatively creative,
adaptive as well as agile while launching new product. However, for getting market attention
by launching new products, there was no better way for the organizational managers of
AtekPC than establishing the project management office.
Depending upon the business type, complexity and market position, every
organization has different culture and structure. However, the typical understanding of
organizational culture includes an organization’s philosophy, values, experiences as well as
expectations that guides the employee behaviour, and express and enhance their self-image,
inner workings and interactions within and outside the organization (Hogan & Coote, 2014).
Moreover, the culture is based on shared customs, attitudes, beliefs, as well as the unwritten
and written rules which are developed over the time and are considered to be valid (Awadh &
Alyahya, 2013). As per the case study given, the PC developing company, AtekPC was going
through a difficult phase of their business due to the dec5reased PC demand and shaken
market position. Therefore, for getting rid of that situation, the PC making organization was
engaged in applying different tactics, which was unaccustomed to the standardization,
disciplined process and consistent. However, the IT managers of AtekPC felt that, in order to
get back the profitability the market reputation and managing the organizational projects, the
organization has to relay on the consistent process and standardization.

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ANALYSIS OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT OFFICE
However, implementation of the PMO in the organizational environment of AtekPC
was initially challenging. Adoption the idea of implementing the PMO in a non-PM
environment gathered several issues for the IT managers as well as the project managers of
the organization and the process was totally against the culture of AtekPC. The first major
challenge that was hindering the establishment of a PMO was deciding its nature and type
that is which kind of PMO will be best suit fit for the organizational structure and culture.
Therefore, to address this issue, several assessment of the organisation was carried out. In
particular, it was vital for the IT managers of the organization to initiate a Project Assessment
Program. The main agenda of this was to underline and discuss about the recently undertaken
projects. For gathering more evidence, a structured interviews was held with different project
stakeholders and the project assessment was also performed by considering several external
resources. However, initially, AtekPC was no project management for carrying out the
organizational complex projects and the main reason was that the organizational culture was
not supporting the same. The key cultural barrier to the PMO was the particular organization
itself was heading towards adopting new services and project management practices. The
managers along with the staffs had a little knowledge about the project management process
and the use of several project management tools. In addition, the budget was also another
issue while adopting this practice. The promotional forces, that were being provided by the
PMO was training, coaching and monitoring. Moreover, despite of the fact that, project
management was a vital part for enhancing the change process and immense pressure over
the organization to change the business process, still there was no consensus among senior
management of the organization. These practices were influencing the implementation of one
efficient project management office in the PC making organization AtekPC.
Currently, almost all the IT organizations are adopting the agile approach for their
project management practices. Agile enhances the method of performance of not only the

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ANALYSIS OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT OFFICE
development team but also several other departments such as, Finance, HR and even PMO
(Conforto et al., 2014). Agile describes the process of helping the project team for managing
the undertaken projects by breaking the whole project into number of different stages. It also
involves the constant collaboration approach with the stakeholders for improving the project
management activities (Serrador & Pinto, 2015). In addition, it ensures the continuous
improvement as well as iteration at every single stage of the project management. This
methodology starts by focusing on the client demand regarding the end product that is how it
will be used, and what issues it is going to address, thereby clarifying the customer
expectations from the project team (Stare 2014). This approach mainly focuses on the
planning, developing and evaluating the project, for making the final deliverables fit into the
customer expectation. However, in this case, continuous collaboration is the key; both
between the project stakeholders and the team members (Conforto & Amaral, 2016). As a
whole, it can be said that, the agile is one efficient project management approach that is
developed with the main agenda of providing effectiveness and flexibility to the project
managers for developing customer satisfactory projects (Kerzner 2017). As the name of the
approach suggests, it provides easier and quicker approach for undertaking the project work.
Following are some agile principles that will facilitate the IT projects of the AtekPC.
 Providing timely and continuous delivery of the effective software by prioritizing the
customer demands.
 Welcomes the change in requirements needed for the development process for
providing competitive advantages.
 Delivering required software within a shorter timescale.
 Provide collaborative working approach to the stakeholders and the managers.
 It creates the most effective method for conveying information within the team.

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ANALYSIS OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT OFFICE
 Put emphasis on the most recent technical innovation and provide attention to the
design methods and technical excellence.
Considering the case scenario of the discussed organization AtekPC, agile approach will
be the best one for their project management. In order to acquire market sustainability, the
company needs to change its business policy. Therefore, to support the fast changing
technological environment of this organization, agile will be the best solution. Apart from
that, the agile approach is also beneficial for the projects that do not have any clear scope and
evolved over the time (Stoica, Mircea & Ghilic-Micu, 2013). However, for gaining the
customer support back, it is important for the organization to release its product in a faster
and timely manner. Agile incorporates an efficient as well as continuous development
approach that ensures that the team will able to deliver workable products. As this approach
breaks the entire project into number of iterations, the project risks are also minimized. Agile
supports the continuous improvement and collaboration that will lead to the innovation of
new products and enhancement of the old ones. In addition to that, it provides the facilities of
co-locating the teams, and supports idea creation and brainstorming. One major benefit that
the IT managers can get by adopting the agile philosophy is in terms of continuous customer
support. The traditional methods for managing the projects mainly focuses that the project
team will get in touch to the customer in the initial project management stages. In such cases,
if the team fails to capture the customer expectations or requirements properly in the initial
stage, it will be difficult to deliver effective outcome. On the other hand, agile philosophy
allows the project team to get in contact with the stakeholders and the customers throughout
the process. It also facilitates iterative deliveries, which ensures that the ongoing project is on
track, thereby ensuring the effective delivery of the end product.
However, for getting more advantages from the agile approaches, the PMO of the
organization need to analyse the scope as well as the crucial requirements of the project. In

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ANALYSIS OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT OFFICE
addition, it is vital to ensure about the product backlog that is whether it is prioritized,
estimated and effective or not. Moreover, gathering more knowledge about the agile
methodology, its tools, uses and others will become helpful for the IT managers as well as
PMO for adopting this approach.
According to the case scenario, the PC designing organization AtekPC is heading
towards the establishment of one project management office, which will be helpful for it to
regain its market position. Not only for carrying out the IT projects, but also the PMO will be
helpful for the organization in carrying out the non-IT projects. Before expanding the scope
of the PMO in managing the non-IT projects, the organization need to address some of its
cultural as well as structural issues. There is no timeline or roadmaps for the maturation of
PMO, in addition, there is no methods for measuring its performance. The next issue is that,
there is no particular approach for finding out to whom the PMO was accountable. Apart
from these issues, some other issues such as, the benefit realisation, demand as well as supply
planning, program and project prioritization, resource management as well as the
organizational alignment can also create hindrance for the expansion of PMO towards the
non-IT projects. However, creating the maturity model for the PMO and adopting the
organizational standard, that best suits its structure, culture and business process might
helpful for the PMO to undertake the non-IT projects of PMO. Increasing the value and
effectiveness of the PMO to AtekPC, and staying connected with the clients and business
process can also become advantageous.
Hence, analysing the above discussion, it can be concluded that, establishment of
PMO can be effective for AtekPC, as it will become beneficial for the organization to get
back to the market. The proliferation of web-based applications, mobile phones, PDAs have
put greater impact on the selling of PC. Therefore, many PC making organizations such as,
AtekPC are facing disastrous market conditions. The establishment of PMO in the

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ANALYSIS OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT OFFICE
organization will provide effective and constant project practice for the organization.
However, before planning for the PMO establishment, the managers of the organization need
to concern about the organizational culture and the issues associated to it. Nevertheless,
implementation of different processes such as agile methodology can enhance its activity.
Agile philosophy focuses on breaking down the entire project into several iterations so that
the project work can be easier and risk can be minimized.

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ANALYSIS OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT OFFICE
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ANALYSIS OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT OFFICE
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