PMOs Trend Toward Broader Role: Announcing the EMO

Cornelius Fichtner of PM Podcast and PM Prepcast fame, recently blogged about a new trend emerging with regard to PMOs---the Everything Management Office or EMO. The insight came as a result of a number of discussions at the PMO Summit 2008 in Florida, particularly with Terry Doerscher of Planview.

I had the pleasure of being part of a panel at another PMO Summit, hosted by Terry Doerscher in Philadelphia, where he referred to this emerging trend as PMO 2.0.

The concept is that PMOs are emerging to offer guidance not only on strategic projects, but on smaller efforts, operational requests, and even business processes. From my observations as well, in many organizations the PMO is quickly becoming an overall process center of excellence and/or integration point, also linking strategy with execution of all work. I've often referred to this as an Integration Management Office, but the concept is similar.

Fichtner and Doerscher wisely caution against an EMO becoming to prescriptive or bureaucratic, and suggest that it should be more about guidance, influence, and support. I echo this. With that in mind, it's especially important for a PMO/EMO to be placed high enough in the organization to be effective.

For more, read Cornelius's report...


The EMO - The Latest Trend For PMOs