PMO Course Deep-Dive – Essentials for PMO Managers

In this series of blogs, we are taking a deep dive into our courses and giving you a taste of the course materials that we use by selecting one area of the training course syllabus.

The Essentials for PMO Managers course launched last year from the House of PMO has quickly become popular. It is the third instalment in the suite of courses designed to give PMO practitioners the essential knowledge to complete their current or future roles as Administrators, Analysts, Managers, and Directors.

The course is held over 3 days, and we currently offer this course in the virtual classroom so you can take up this course anywhere in the world. The course covers a wide range of topics from the core roles and responsibilities of a PMO Manager role, their key skills, and behaviours, and discovering the fundamentals of the design, setup, implementation, running, and closing down of a PMO and of the services the PMO offers to their organisation.

In this blog, we are looking at the syllabus area which focuses on how the PMO offers services around the capability of the people delivering change – Capability Development.

This topic is covered on Day 2 of the course and is aligned to the P3M Enabling competences featured in the course textbook – The PMO Competency Framework. P3M Enabling competences are those which PMO Managers need in order to provide the environment or ecosystem in which portfolios, programmes and projects are delivered. Alongside capability development, this also includes putting in place governance frameworks; delivery methods; assurance; capacity development and P3M tools.

Capability Development

“Capability development addresses the gaps in skills, knowledge, behaviour and experience available versus the requirements identified through capacity management and resource management activities.”

With capability development, the PMO can offer a number of services which focus on professional development, knowledge sharing, skills gap analysis, collaboration and mentoring & coaching, to name a few.

In the Essentials for PMO Managers course, there are four specific areas which are focused on:

Communities of Practice (CoPs)

Communities of Practice are groups of people who share an interest in portfolio, programme and project (P3) management or an aspect of P3 management. The goals of these communities are to:

share information that helps individuals to develop their skills
help the profession to collectively evolve and improve.

The nature of CoPs varies widely but all share the objective of transferring knowledge and developing skills.

The PMO can be responsible for setting up, running and maintaining CoPs.

Skills Assessments or Audits

Skills assessments are a means for assessing whether an individual is competent in a particular role. It can be done as a self-assessment or an individual’s results can be ratified by a line manager.

The PMO can manage the skills assessment process, including management of the tool or system and analysis of the outputs.

Talent Identification

Talent identification is all about the ability to see talent before others see it (internally and externally), unlock human potential, and find not just the best employee for each role, but also the best role for each employee.

The PMO, in their relationship with HR departments, can provide analysis and insights into the resource gaps for example.

On the job training

Finally on the job training, learning via tasks and problems in the workplace / in a project environment, is often one of the best ways people learn.

The PMO themselves can offer training courses, workshops, byte-sized learning – as well as organising buddying systems and mentoring schemes.

This part of the Essentials for PMO Managers course enables PMO Managers to understand the requirements for capability development in the organisation, what services the PMO should be providing in this area and what role the PMO Manager should be performing.

As with all the Essentials courses, the training focuses on the role you carry out and the competences, knowledge, skills and behaviour you need to perform that role well.

Find out more about the Essentials for PMO Managers and the detailed syllabus for the course.

What to read next> PMO Course Deep-Dive – P3O® Foundation

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