Steve's post — est. reading time: 12 min

Project Management Offices (PMOs) are created to bring discipline, alignment, and assurance to delivery. But in many organisations, PMOs fail to earn their place — adding cost, creating friction, or failing to influence outcomes. This article explores why PMOs fall short and outlines how business and technology leaders can begin recovery.

Why Project Management Offices Fail

Despite good intentions, many PMOs underperform because they are disconnected from the realities of delivery or the priorities of the business. Here are the common reasons they fail:

Lack of Purpose and Alignment

Some PMOs are established as a formality — created without a clear mandate or value proposition. When not tied to strategic objectives, the PMO becomes a passive reporting layer, unable to guide or influence delivery outcomes. Without a purpose that resonates with the business, it quickly loses relevance.

Over-Engineered or Under-Developed

PMOs often swing to extremes: either enforcing rigid, bureaucratic processes that slow teams down or offering too little structure, leading to inconsistency. Neither model builds confidence. Over-governance alienates delivery teams, while under-governance leaves leadership blind to risk and progress.

Weak Leadership and Authority

PMOs frequently lack leaders with the experience, credibility, and influence required to operate cross-functionally. Without strong leadership, they can’t uphold standards, advocate for change, or provide value beyond compliance checklists.

Low Stakeholder Engagement

When stakeholders perceive the PMO as a blocker instead of an enabler, they bypass it. A failing PMO often struggles to build trusted relationships with project managers, delivery teams, or executive sponsors — leading to isolation and diminished impact.

Reporting Without Insight

Too many PMOs focus on producing data, not driving decisions. Static dashboards and status updates become routine noise, offering little insight into risk, delivery confidence, or strategic value. In these cases, reporting becomes an exercise in bureaucracy rather than a tool for action.

How to Start Recovering a Failing PMO

Turning around a PMO doesn’t require starting over — but it does require refocus, leadership, and clear intent. Recovery starts with pragmatic steps:

Reestablish the Purpose

Clarify why the PMO exists and align it with business outcomes. Shift the focus from enforcing process to enabling delivery. Redefine success not by how many templates are used, but by how well projects deliver value, manage risk, and meet strategic goals.

Install Credible Leadership

Appoint a PMO lead with hands-on delivery experience and the authority to influence senior stakeholders. They should be a peer to programme and project leaders, not a distant administrator. The right leader will reset expectations and rebuild trust.

Right-Size Governance

Design governance that supports delivery instead of constraining it. Focus on a few critical checkpoints, not exhaustive gatekeeping. Give teams room to adapt while maintaining visibility and consistency. A lighter, smarter approach earns buy-in and speeds outcomes.

Reconnect with Stakeholders

Listen to the delivery teams, sponsors, and executives. Understand their challenges and reshape the PMO as a service that helps solve real problems. Build partnerships, not policing. Influence grows through collaboration, not control.

Shift Focus from Data to Insight

Move beyond raw reporting. Translate status into meaning — highlight risks, spot delivery gaps, surface actionable intelligence. Provide leaders with the information they need to make confident decisions. Insight creates value; volume does not.

Deliver Visible Wins

Find two or three key projects where the PMO can make a measurable, visible difference — faster delivery, better risk management, clearer reporting. Use these success stories to prove the PMO’s value and start changing perceptions across the business.

Conclusion: Make the PMO a Strategic Enabler

PMOs don't need to be scrapped — they need to evolve. With purpose, leadership, and a focus on outcomes, the PMO can become a trusted engine of delivery assurance and strategic alignment. For CIOs, CTOs, and business leaders, recovery starts with a single decision: make the PMO matter again.

Strategic Insight — est. reading time: 11 min

Programme Management Offices (PgMOs) are built to align complex, cross-functional initiatives to strategic business outcomes. In theory, they are the engine of enterprise transformation. In practice, many fail to deliver value. Let’s unpack the reasons for failure—and how pragmatic leaders can drive a meaningful turnaround.

Where PgMOs Fall Short

Unclear Mandate and Role

Too many PgMOs exist in a strategic grey zone—neither fully empowered to drive delivery, nor trusted to influence enterprise vision. Without a defined role, scope, or authority, they drift between reporting function and programme admin. Teams don’t know what to expect—and neither does leadership.

Disconnected from Business Outcomes

A PgMO’s ultimate job is to make sure programmes deliver value. When its metrics focus on timelines and Gantt charts instead of strategic benefits, the function loses credibility. Without a strong link to outcomes, the PgMO becomes noise in the system.

Incoherent Integration Across Projects

Programmes live or die by the coordination of moving parts. If the PgMO doesn’t manage interdependencies, sequence delivery, or balance resources across workstreams, progress stalls. Silos re-emerge, and cross-project tension builds. Integration isn’t optional—it’s the PgMO’s core product.

Missing Change and Benefits Management

Many PgMOs focus on execution alone, ignoring the people, process, and value dimensions. Change management and benefits tracking become afterthoughts. But without visible impact, programmes are hard to justify—and even harder to sustain.

Limited Executive Engagement

Senior leadership buy-in isn’t a luxury—it’s a requirement. When PgMOs lack access to decision-makers or are seen as low-value admin layers, they lose the leverage to unblock progress, resolve conflicts, or steer at the strategic level.

Turning Things Around: A Recovery Playbook

Reassert the PgMO's Purpose

Clarify the PgMO’s identity as a strategic integrator. Its role is to connect delivery to outcomes—not to run projects, but to ensure they collectively achieve business impact. Reposition it as a driver of transformation, not a governance relic.

Redesign Governance for Momentum

Governance must be outcome-focused, fast, and enabling. Align decision rights, escalation paths, and review cadence with strategic priorities. Avoid bureaucracy. Provide just enough structure to move decisively and transparently.

Rebuild Integration Capability

Map interdependencies. Sequence work across teams. Allocate shared resources dynamically. Build a single version of the programme truth—visible to all stakeholders. Without this, integration becomes guesswork and coordination collapses.

Make Change and Benefits Central

Change enablement and benefits realisation must sit at the heart of the PgMO’s rhythm. Track adoption, behavioural shifts, and measurable value. These are the real KPIs of strategic execution—not just delivery milestones.

Reconnect with Executives

Establish regular forums with decision-makers. Use these moments to surface blockers, validate outcomes, and course-correct in real time. PgMO leaders must speak the language of business value—not just delivery status.

Report Value, Not Just Activity

Shift away from tracking "how much" to highlighting "how meaningful." Surface insights that influence investment, improve execution, and validate strategic alignment. The PgMO must evolve from tracker to translator—from status to story.

A Strategic Enabler—Not a Side Function

A well-positioned PgMO can be a force multiplier. It aligns the enterprise around shared outcomes, turns complexity into clarity, and translates vision into coordinated delivery. But this only happens when it is given the mandate, the leadership, and the strategic posture to succeed.

Recovery isn’t about adding process. It’s about redefining relevance. With the right foundation, the PgMO becomes not just a governance body—but a driver of transformation, accountability, and real-world results.

Strategic Insight — est. reading time: 8 min

In many organisations, the PMO—whether project, programme, or portfolio—has become a paradox. It’s meant to create control and clarity, yet it often delivers only compliance and paperwork. As transformation becomes a core business competency, the real question is no longer whether you need a PMO—but whether you have the right kind of PMO.

Administrative Support or Strategic Orchestrator?

At the centre of every PMO model is a single tension: is it there to administer delivery, or orchestrate change? The answer defines not just its structure—but its value.

The Administrative PMO: Familiar, Comfortable—and Dangerous

This is the legacy model: a back-office function that updates trackers, produces dashboards, files RAID logs, and chases RAG statuses. It’s present—but peripheral. Safe—but ineffective.

Why does it persist? Because it’s cheap. Non-threatening. And it gives the illusion of control through process. But it doesn’t manage complexity—it buries it. It doesn’t drive decisions—it avoids them. It doesn’t connect to value—it reports on activity.

For senior leaders, this model is worse than benign. It’s a liability. It fails to inform, doesn’t influence, and contributes nothing to commercial or strategic outcomes.

The Strategic Orchestrator: Embedded, Influential, Commercial

Now contrast that with a modern, strategic PMO—one that acts as a delivery control tower and value integrator. This PMO earns its seat at the executive table by enabling smarter decisions, faster responses, and clearer trade-offs.

It:

• Shapes investment by surfacing commercial impact—not just milestones
• Connects delivery streams to strategy and enterprise outcomes
• Surfaces risks and opportunities early enough for intervention
• Supports prioritisation and planning based on real-time constraints
• Challenges delivery plans that aren’t viable—before they fail

This isn’t a PMO that waits to be asked. It proactively brings clarity to complexity. It’s integrated into the rhythm of leadership—not adjacent to it.

The Cost of Staying Static

In high-pressure environments, a passive PMO isn’t just ineffective—it’s expensive. Poor visibility, misaligned priorities, and hidden constraints compound rapidly:

• Transformation slows or stalls
• Governance becomes reactive
• Resource overload goes unnoticed
• Confidence in delivery erodes—internally and externally

By contrast, a strategically reset PMO acts as an enterprise command centre—integrating governance, delivery, and commercial oversight into one coherent operating model.

What Needs to Change?

If your PMO is stuck in reporting mode, ask these questions:

• Does it help the executive team make better decisions?
• Is it embedded in the strategic and commercial fabric of the business?
• Does it challenge as well as support?
• Are its people respected as peers by programme leads and product owners?

If most of your answers are “no,” the solution isn’t more process—it’s structural reset. This is about repositioning, not polishing.

The Call to Action

Your PMO should be the strategic heartbeat of delivery—not its paper trail. In today’s environment, transformation isn’t a special project—it’s the operating model. That demands a PMO that orchestrates change, not just administers it.

Whether you evolve from within, bring in expertise, or build hybrid models—the imperative is the same: stop settling for administration. Start building orchestration. That’s what delivers transformation at pace, at scale, and on purpose.