Book Review: Business Driven PMO Setup: Practical Insights, Techniques and Case Examples for Ensuring Success

 

By: Mark Price Perry

Note: I have also posted this review on Amazon where you can purchase the book.

Business Driven PMO Setup is a comprehensive guide to establishing or improving your PMO broken out into digestible chapters. The author "gets it" and understands that it is about process not methodology, PMOs need to be adaptable not static, and ultimately you need to demonstrate the PMO's value to the business to be successful. 

The book is layered with figures, examples and real life case studies. A few that were of particular interest were the Project Selection Scorecard (Chapter Four) and the PMO Setup Phases (Chapter Ten). The project selection scorecard walks you through a series of example questions and scoring mechanisms to objectively determine if a project should be approved. The example empowers the end user to apply the information and adapt it to their circumstances. In Chapter Ten, the PMO setup Phases clearly lays out something we all know, a PMO's perceived value is not achieved until late in the process after much of the work and change has already occurred. 

A PMO is ultimately a communications vehicle ensuring that the strategic vision of the organization is applied to the work that is done by the resources. This is often overlooked by PMO leaders as the focus falls to tools, methodology and systems. This book guides you to focus your attention on the areas that matter in a dynamic environment. 

Mark provides a list of the Top 200 Tips, broken out into "Top Ten Lists", as a supplement to the book. These are great take a ways to quickly review a particular knowledge area. Mark's book is an excellent reference guide and demonstrates practical hands on experience.