Graduates in the PMO

Throughout our careers in PMO we have always seen the PMO as a great place for new graduates within the business to get started on their careers.

It makes perfect sense. The PMO is ideally positioned for graduate to get to grips with project delivery as well as understanding how the entire business works. You can’t work in PMO without understanding how the change you’re supporting is going to affect the business at large.

With graduate intakes, the PMO is a great place to start working in a business environment for the first time. Getting used to the business tools; learning the accepted behaviours in the workplace; understanding how a business operates and how the departments work together – all the fundamentals of working in a business environment that we often take for granted.

The PMO is also great for graduate intakes because they are working within a supportive team from day one. There are plenty of mentors available; team members to work alongside until they’re confident with their new-found skills in PMO.

The PMO will provide graduates with a variety of different activities and tasks to learn and master. From day one, they’ll also be learning about who is who within the business – a great orientation for anyone new to the business.

With more and more graduates learning about project management and it becoming a career of choice for many, how can we ensure that graduates are setting off on the right foot?

What Do Graduates Need to Know About Working in a PMO?

Understanding Project Management and Projects

New graduates need to understand what a project is at its very basic. Graduate intakes can consist of a variety of levels of understanding about project management and projects so what becomes important is understanding project management and projects within the context of the organisation they work in.

The PMO can be great at getting people up to speed with the basics of how “things are done around here” but it’s also important for graduates to understand the best practice or widely recognised techniques of project management external to the organisation too.

To gain this kind of knowledge, the entry-level certification from BCS – the PPSO Essentials, is ideal because of its teaching around the fundamentals of project management in the context of a PMO.

With a good understanding of how projects are managed, the methods, processes, techniques and tools available, the next stage is to understand the role of the PMO.

 

Understanding the Remit of the PMO

BCS PPSO EssentialsEach PMO is different. Different in the respect that a PMO’s remit is set by the organisation in which it is positioned. The PMO may differ from organisation to organisation but there are similarities in the functions and services it offers to meet the remit.

For graduates with project management fundamentals knowledge, it makes sense that the functions and services the PMO offers is taught alongside the fundamentals training. That’s the great thing about the BCS PPSO Essentials – it provides just that. For example, the course covers the basics of risk management, in doing that it also teaches the role the PMO plays in risk management – what tasks and activities they perform in offering a risk management service. Take a look at the modules (at the bottom of the page) to see which vital functions and services are taught.

The Service Mindset

With an understanding of project management and projects PLUS the role the PMO is providing to the organisation and how to perform those vital functions and services – that leaves the service mindset.

This is the way the PMO offers its services – that what it does is service oriented and that it has customers to serve. The mindset has to be recognised and embedded so that for each of the services offered, it is known exactly who needs the service, what they want from the service and that the PMO knows what good service looks like in each of the functions it offers.

This is the introduction to the PMO being a proactive, continuous improvement operation rather than the older view that the PMO is a passive, supporting function.

The BCS – PPSO Essentials pulls together the project fundamentals, the remit of the PMO and the way the PMO carries out the role. A good all round certification for those new to working within the PMO.

For further information about how PMO Learning can offer BCS – PPSO Essentials for your graduate intake, contact us and find out how an on-site course can include the context of your project delivery too.

BCS PPSO Essentials

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