Establishing and Managing a Strategic PMO

Challenge

A leading education focused non-profit had recently launched a major re-design of its flagship product, causing significant shifts, both in the marketplace and to product operations. To stabilize the new product, they needed to prioritize 100+ strategic product initiatives focused on Product Improvements, Operational Efficiency, Marketing, and Constituent Outreach. They needed to launch and manage a PMO to guarantee clarity in scope, status, budget, and timely issue resolution with senior leadership. Finally they needed help ensuring coordination, communication and collaboration across teams, business units, and external vendors.

Approach: Think + Do

We began by developing a methodology for project prioritization and roadmap development that would have an immediate impact while laying the groundwork for future initiatives. Collaborating with project leaders and teams, we established clarity of scope and resource needs, drove clear and timely strategic decision making, and gained senior leadership support. We supported project teams with analysis and development of deliverables to ensure timely completion of project activities. We led project teams with selection, onboarding, and management of third party vendors where specific expertise was necessary to achieve project objectives.

Results

We produced a three-year roadmap for strategic product initiatives. We established and led a PMO, effectively managing 20+ product initiatives in the first year of the roadmap. We transitioned PMO activities to internal staff, paving the way for ongoing management of annual product initiatives. We managed and acted as team members on several initiatives where internal staff did not have the capacity or required experience and knowledge. We led a major product enhancement initiative directly resulting in significant product P&L improvement.