Goals that the PMO Should Strive to Achieve in the Post-Pandemic Era

The pandemic has given an important lesson to the enterprise leaders – the uncertainty is here to stay. Hence, enterprise leaders, in particular the leaders in the Project Management Office (PMO) need to pivot their focus towards achieving goals for becoming a strategic partner in the ‘new normal.’

The COVID crisis has made it impossible for enterprises to keep up with deadlines. It has been especially difficult for the PMO of an enterprise to deliver projects on time. But it is not enough due to the ever-evolving landscape of the enterprise world, the priorities are constantly shifting.

Thus, to effectively get their job done, project managers need to focus on the following goals:

Being resilient and adaptable

To succeed in their endeavors, it is extremely critical for project managers to remain agile and adaptable in today’s uncertain times. But to become an essential strategic partners and leaders of an enterprise, they need to also set and add reaction, resiliency and recovery to their list of goals. These will enable them to work towards restoring disruptive initiatives and incorporate a sustainable approach.

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Executing high-impact initiatives

In the post-COVID-19 era, most enterprises have changed the priorities of their projects and portfolios. As per experts, most of them are focusing on integrating automation technologies, securing remote working infrastructure, supply chain safety, reducing their impact on climate change and improving and enhancing customer experience.

If project managers spend their time on executing projects that do not add value or are not aligned to tackle the above challenges, enterprises will lose significant resources and may potentially hinder the chance of desirable opportunities. Hence, it is essential that the project manager only focuses on the opportunities that can elevate the success of high-impact projects.

Adjusting to the remote environment

With more and more enterprises providing their employees the option of remote work, it is becoming increasingly difficult to hire, train and manage a team. The situation only gets worse when enterprises decide to hire strategic-minded project managers.

In today’s post-pandemic world, it is essential to hire and train strategic-minded project managers who can help enterprises seamlessly integrate automation tools, address supply chain gaps and enhance the customer experience. Thus, PMOs must hire, train, and mentor their remote project managers to be their vested strategic partners.

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These provide enterprises with leaders who understand the impact of changes on the projects and portfolios and what steps they need to take to deliver them on limited resources.

Aligning with dynamic objectives

If PMOs cannot add value to the strategic goals of enterprises, it becomes difficult for enterprises to successfully execute the projects. And, in today’s constantly changing business environment, not keeping track of changing strategic objectives can easily lead to failure. To address these issues, there needs to be a transparent communication flow between all project leaders about the progress toward the goals.

Also, PMOs will have to engage with change managers to identify as well as navigate changes for developing new processes. They need to communicate and document the changes to the right stakeholders in a timely manner to keep track of the impact of their initiatives.

The uncertainty in the enterprise landscape may stay for a long time. However, by striving to achieve the new goals, PMOs can drastically improve the project execution chances and tackle challenges that may come their way.