Developing and Implementing Project Offices

One of the surest ways to build project management sophistication and maturity at an institution is through a Project Office. A Project Office is a central office that leads the development and institutionalization of project management processes, skills, and competencies and that supplies professional project managers to manage the most mission-critical projects on campus.

The creation of a Project Office is an effective way of incorporating best project management practices in an institution, and is widely recognized as one of the most effective business practices used by successful institutions.

Role of a Project Office

Some of the possible roles for a Project Office are:

• Maintains the portfolio of projects and is responsible for period reporting
  
• Ensures that the portfolio is aligned with the strategic intent of the institution
  
• Develops, deploys and promotes a focus on metrics
  
• Supplies project managers for mission critical projects
  
• Develops, deploys, and promotes organizational standards on project management
  
• Provides consulting, mentoring, training, facilitation and scheduling services in project management to the institution
  
• Conducts feasibility studies on all mission critical initiatives
  
• Develops annual training and improvement plans for the Project Office and project management in the institution
  
  

Benefits of a Project Office

Some of the benefits of a successful Project Office include:

• A structured approach to portfolio management at your institution - the establishment of a rational method for determining which projects will be resourced and which will not
  
• Alignment of projects and resources to match the strategic direction of the institution
  
• Executive dashboard reports of progress of portfolio projects against schedule and budget
  
• A cadre of professional project managers
  
• A focus on the continuous improvement of project management processes
  
• Improved success rate of projects at your institution
  
• Decreasing cost and schedule overruns
  
• Improved quality of projects
  
  

Let us Help You
Collegiate Project Services has experience in starting Project Offices in institutional IT departments as well as in university systems. We provide consulting to help design the Office, design portfolio reporting, and develop project management methods, procedures, and training programs. We can also help staff your Office in the first year to get your institution's Project O ffice “off the ground” successfully.

For More Information
For more information about Developing and Implementing Project Offices please call us at 877.454.1290 or contact us by email.