EPMO: Your Job? No Title? No Worries.

Do you lead your organization’s EPMO (Enterprise Project Management Office)? Are you familiar with the role? Regardless, within the PMO you may be already performing all the duties of an EPMO and providing the same level of support. But the real question is: Does your organization’s executive team realize it?

Let’s briefly set aside the issue of “title” for the sake of this discussion and agree with Ashley Stahl, Forbes contributing author¹, that it can be challenging to communicate one’s true level of professional responsibility with words on a business card or when introducing ourselves by our role.

As you may know, a PMO “sets, maintains and ensures standards for project management across an organization.”² It is typically housed within IT and reports to the CTO/CIO. The office is the purveyor of best practices, communicates the status of key projects, and maintains project direction with an overarching goal of delivering value to the organization.  

On the other hand, the goal of an EPMO, according to the Project Management Institute (PMI)³, is to align IT projects with business strategy and collaborate with an organization’s executives through all phases of strategic planning to increase a project’s chances of success. An EPMO leader typically reports to a CFO/CEO, is housed outside of a business unit, and affects a portfolio of projects, enterprise-wide.

In today’s competitive environment with the constant push to decrease costs, increase productivity, improve customer satisfaction, and enhance user experience while continuously finding new ways to support the business, it’s just a matter of time before the PMO naturally morphs into an EPMO. Many times, there is no formal discussion or change in process or shift in job description. Successful IT leaders in the PMO are organically becoming more focused on strategy and starting to actually drive organizational success. 

Has it already started happening to you or within your organization?

There has never been a more important time to quantify and communicate the business value of your efforts. You know what you are delivering, but have you found ways to simply and effectively communicate that value to the executive team? 

Stay tuned for future blogs. We will explore roles and responsibilities of those in an EPMO role, the potential impact on an organization, and the ways you can secure your position, with or without a fancy title, as a strategic partner.

¹https://www.forbes.com/sites/ashleystahl/2017/09/07/how-important-is-your-job-title/#eca1876e3d8f

²https://www.cio.com/article/3277972/project-management/epmo-enterprise-project-management-office-explained.html

³https://www.pmi.org/-/media/pmi/documents/public/pdf/learning/thought-leadership/pulse/pulse-of-the-profession-2013.pdf