For those who will be at the Project Management Institute’s PMO Symposium 2010 in Dallas, I’ll be presenting on The Virtual Integrated PMO on Tuesday, November 9th at 3pm.
The concept of a “Virtual Integrated PMO” is gaining wider recognition as three parallel trends have emerged: stakeholders and project teams becoming more dispersed across greater distances; the role of the PMO expanding beyond project and program oversight to take on a more strategic role; and the PMO being asked to operate with little or no direct resources.
In essence, the PMO is being required to do more with less, and do it while influencing a larger, more distributed audience. As a result, the PMO is becoming more reliant on cross-functional teams, relationships with senior management, and resources outside of its control. The PMO is also being forced to shift its focus from execution to alignment, and from project management to portfolio management and capacity planning (though project management is still an important component in the mix).
Meanwhile, this presents a unique opportunity for a PMO to establish itself as a true value to the organization by becoming a knowledge broker and the primary integration point across the organizational ecosystem.
As a contributor of best practices and white papers for Planview, I’ll be representing them at the event along with my esteemed colleague Terry Doerscher, who is facilitating a pre-conference workshop and will be talking about the role of the PMO in managing change. Hope you can join us in Dallas. If not, I’ll be posting followup discussions here.
Jerry Manas is an internationally best-selling author and researcher, and Senior Writer/Editor at Planview, the leading Enterprise Portfolio Management software company. His books Napoleon on Project Management, cited by management guru Tom Peters for its timeless principles, and Managing the Gray Areas, touted by Orlando Magic founder Pat Williams as "a new path for leaders," were critically acclaimed, with the former being translated into 8 languages. More recently, he co-authored 42 Rules for Creating WE, which was hailed by Burberry CEO Angela Ahrendts as "today's greatest guide for team success." His latest book, released January 2010, is Project Lessons from the Roman Empire.
Jerry is a founding member of The Creating We Institute (www.creatingweinstitute.com), an international thought leadership community dedicated to fostering WE-centric practices. He is also co-founder of PMThink! and a founding member of the Project Management Institute's New Media Council. Visit his website at www.jerrymanas.com. 
