7 benefits of P3O
Most organisations have all kinds of change going on. Often the senior managers responsible have no idea about the impact of these changes in terms of what they cost, when they will deliver and which ones actually support corporate strategies.
Step forward P3O…. P3O provides a well thought out framework to deliver key benefits including:
1 - Decision enabling.
The backbone of any company is information. Information must be captured and then processed to enable decisions to be made. The quality of that information will sometimes determine the quality of the decision made. The P3O seeks to establish best practise for its delegates, from capturing the information, processing it, and then its storage and archiving. P3O Training covers the principles of decision enabling including the concept that data should have a "single source of truth"
2 - Delivery support
Programme and project managers need to manage projects. They should not be bogged down with nitty gritty admin tasks that can done by someone more junior, more cost effective and with the relevant skills. P3O describes 15 functional roles, such as Planner or Tools Expert, where the support personnel can add real value to the programme or project manager.
3 - Investing in people
A company or organization is only as good as the people who work for it. By investing in Qualifications for its employees, it demonstrates the organization's commitment to staff development. P3O is the only generic PMO qualification and is becoming a sought after qualification for lots of employers. It gives credibility to the staff working for the P3O and shows that they are specialist professionals who add real value to the company or organization, not simply administrators.
4 - Roles and responsibilities
By allocating roles and responsibilities to the P3O personnel, this brings clarity and empowerment to the employee. A team can also be bound together adding real value to programme and project management community. The P3O manual has clear descriptions of 21 Management, Generic and Functional roles that may be used in the P3O.
5 - Improved corporate governance
The P3O training course has a lot of focus on improving the corporate governance of the organization by establishing best practise principles for Accountability, transparency and visibility. By making sure that issues and risks are escalated to the right level of decision making authority, fewer blindspots will be missed.
6 - Safeguarding value
By supporting the business case process, the P3O can provide a benefits tracking service for the portfolio and programmes it supports. For many organizations this is a very weak area and P3O training adds value as it describes how to address this problem. This can also lead to more benefit opportunities being spotted which may otherwise have been missed.
7 - Interpretation of data
The course pays particular attention to the interpretation of data and not just its collection and storage. Delegates on the course will be encouraged to challenge and scrutinize and give recommendations to senior management using reasoned argument. This will add real value to the organization as more benefits will be highlighted and prioritised, rather than evoking a "yes culture". Training course students are encouraged to use P3O as a career path in its own right, so they could start in a project office and work their way up to the portfolio office.
