Program Management Office (PgMO)
Program Management Office (PgMO) is part of a dynamic organizational structure and serves value to scale return to an enterprise-wide audience. The hybrid approach to this Organizational Design is the most modern approach to establishing governance and scale to accomplish PM maturity in project-based organizations.
Project Description
This project was chartered to accommodate high growth via M&A while shifting to large and complex initiatives that will dictate the future of the organization.
Client
The client is a leading provider of antenna and technology systems for the DoD and other governmental subsets.
Challenge
The company is growing at significant pace and widening the portfolio of offerings through a newly formed Innovation Center of Excellence, thus generating large and complex systems from R&D through Manufacturing. This shift in strategy mandates the elevation of measurable process and skills to accommodate the needed maturity to succeed in this expanding market.
Solution
After developing a clear scope of work with senior stakeholders, AMS conducted onsite interviews and reviews of the organization’s engineering and project management processes and practices. Functional mapping of roles and responsibilities was undertaken to ensure project team composition-competency was consistent with project demands. A detailed gap analysis with detailed recommendations was delivered to a senior steering committee, they were in agreement with our assessment(s) and recommendations. A key recommendation was that rather than AMS “taking over” the implementation project, it would be more beneficial for designated client resources to be the lead in the implementation project. Consistent with our recommendations we developed an execution plan where client resources would be coached and mentored to achieve specific practices and deliverables for the PgMO development, Project Management rigor and implementing a practical system for practical and Integrated Project Control across the multiple functional contributors. The organization’s development life cycle was also “fitted” with a structure of scalable stage gates and application criteria.
Benefits
As a result of the overall assessment, the organization’s best practices that were functional and working well, were validated and measurable. Scalable front-end planning practices were adopted to ensure the projects objectives were decomposed properly into an accurate technical design basis and requisite project management execution practices were aligned and applied. The PgMO was developed and chartered as a service-based organization first and a governance mechanism second. This approach helped shift cultural inertia and early apprehensions about the PgMO assuming a “heavy handed” governance role. The client’s project portfolio stabilized and key clients that were hesitating awarding them mission critical projects, were impressed enough with the organization’s transformation to award the projects as a sole-source procurement. Each of these projects were extremely successful with one being awarded a project of distinction award from the federal agency client.