Rethinking Project Management Office at Walker Sime

You might think that PMOs are only for large blue-chip organisations, and that your business or portfolio is too small to justify a PMO. At Walker Sime, we believe that idea deserves a rethink. Dom Gill, Director, Infrastructure Services explains some of the challenges of managing multiple projects and portfolios of work, and how we take an individual, tailored approach to its delivery.

While it’s true that a PMO will always be used on larger portfolios with hundreds of individual projects amounting to billions of pounds of investment, it doesn’t have to be that way.

We understand that small and medium-sized businesses face just as many challenges as their larger counterparts when it comes to project management. Resource constraints, limited budgets, and a lack of dedicated project management expertise often make it difficult for SMEs.

We understand these challenges and have built our Project Management Office service to respond to the needs that we’re seeing in the industry.
Read on to find out what makes our PMO service different. Or, if you’re interested, please register for one of our Rethinking PMOs events here.

Rethinking PMO

At Walker Sime we define a PMO as a standardised way for a business to manage a portfolio of projects. It sets the governance for tools, templates, processes and procedures, ensuring every project is managed and reported in a consistent way. This enables senior managers within client organisations to use the information the PMO provides to make informed decisions.

We understand a traditional, large scale PMO isn’t appropriate for all clients. That’s why our offering is unique, scalable and bespoke for every client. What’s more, we upskill your team to manage their own PMO. So, bringing us in to set up the PMO doesn’t mean that you’re locked in to working with us forever.

Bringing Walker Sime in to build and implement a PMO means you work with someone who knows how to deliver construction projects, and the nuances around clients governance and reporting requirements. Our PMOs aren’t delivered by IT people; they’re delivered by construction people. And we know the valuable difference that makes to our clients.

What does a Walker Sime PMO deliver?

For the biggest infrastructure and regeneration projects across the UK, PMO is the vital link in the chain, ensuring programmes stay on course, on time and on budget. But yours doesn’t have to be a mammoth regeneration scheme to benefit from a PMO.

We believe that every business should have access to quality project management services, regardless of their size or resources. Walker Sime’s PMO development service gives small and medium-sized organisations the tools and expertise to improve their project outcomes and achieve greater success, supported by our blend of technical knowledge and construction management experience. Read more about our PMO offering here.

Agility

At the heart of the PMO is robust, accurate reporting and cost control. This is vital to instil investor confidence, reporting up the chain and building a case to protect and/or secure budgets, giving senior leaders the confidence to make informed decisions. Our unique, bespoke PMO runs on our own software, which we’ll set up for you.

A PMO brings greater efficiency to delivering concurrent projects, highlighting where time and cost savings can be made by automating processes and approvals.
Our agile offering means that you don’t have to commit to something large and unaffordable at the outset of a project – you can buy bolt-ons as and when they’re needed.

What scale of portfolio do Walker Sime’s PMOs add value to?

This is where our PMO development service has proved so valuable. Rather than billions, Walker Sime’s PMOs have an approximate ‘entry level’ of 50 projects and a total minimum value per PMO of £50 million. These are still portfolios of significant scale, but it means that local authorities and other clients steering major regeneration works don’t need to have pockets as deep as the blue-chip organisations.

Register for one of our events

If you’d like to explore how a PMO could help lock in the success of your regeneration projects we’re running ‘Rethinking PMOs’ workshops throughout the year. Register here to secure your place.

Or, contact me directly and I’d be more than happy to discuss our offering in more detail.

Thanks, Dom

For nationwide multi-disciplinary construction consultancy, including Quantity Surveying, Project Management, Infrastructure Services, Construction Design Management, Bill of Quantities and more, call us on 0161 872 9955, email hello@walkersime.co.uk or message us here.