How to Create an Effective Project Management Office

It's essential for the health of any organization that all departments, units and initiatives focus on achieving the overall goals of the business and provide real value to the bottom line — without it, the business will fail. As such, units are continuously challenged to show that they do in fact add value, especially those without immediately quantifiable revenue, such as IT or project management.

In particular, project management offices (PMOs) must operate in such a way that they demonstrate that they can support and add to the wider organization and its strategic goals.

"Digitalization and bimodal IT are just two examples of the many developments in the business environment that the PMO must support," said Mbula Schoen, senior research analyst at Gartner. "A failure to evolve and adjust to such changes can result in a PMO being misaligned with an organization's goals, and therefore being seen as failing to deliver value."

In this slideshow, Gartner has identified seven best practices to help PMO leaders adapt to such developments and demonstrate the PMO's value to the business.