How to Land a PMO Manager/Lead Role

Securing a PMO Manager or Lead role can be a pivotal step in advancing your career in project management. PMO Manager and PMO Lead roles can be different depending on the organisation. The PMO Manager is generally a role only taken by one person within the PMO. They are senior to the PMO Lead, and run the PMO, responsible for the management of the members of the PMO. Where the PMO Lead might lead temporary PMOs, perhaps set up for a specific project or programme, the PMO Manager runs the permanent PMO, and have greater responsibility and seniority within the organisation.

Both roles require strong PPM and leadership skills, and great interpersonal skills that allow you to communicate effectively with those at all levels within the organisation.

Here are six key ways to help land a PMO Manager/Lead role;

1. Get Certified – with courses such as the Essentials for PMO Managers course. This course focuses on the essential competences, knowledge, skills and behaviours required to perform the role of a PMO Manager successfully.
2. Understand PMO Fundamentals – Familiarise yourself with the structure, function, and types of PMOs (supportive, controlling, directive). Know how they align with organisational goals and facilitate project execution.
3. Develop Leadership and Communication Skills – Effective communication is key. You’ll need to liaise with senior executives, project teams, and external stakeholders, balancing their interests while keeping projects aligned with the strategic vision.
4. Network and Learn from Industry Leaders – Engage in person and online with other PMO Professionals who have experience leading PMOs, to get their best advice and understanding of the role. You can also join groups such as the PMO Learning LinkedIn group to network or attend PMO conferences, webinars, and workshops to stay updated on industry trends.
5. Gain Experience in PMO Setup and Operations – If you are a PMO Analyst and wanting to move into a Manager role, offer your time and skills to help with current Manager led tasks and take on more responsibility. Show your initiative and willingness to step up and learn the role.
6. Customise Your CV and Personal Branding – Tailor your CV to showcase your experience in managing teams, overseeing project portfolios, implementing governance frameworks, and ensuring alignment with strategic goals. Before interviewing, research the company’s current PMO structure and how it supports their business goals. Be ready to explain how your experience will help refine or elevate their existing processes.

We recently ran a Career and Training Webinar in which we were asked how to land a PMO Manager/Lead role. Take a look at Lindsay and Eileen’s advice below.

Click here to read more about the Essentials for PMO Managers course and see upcoming course dates.

Transcript

How can land a PMO Manager/ lead role very open question for one.

I think this is one of the things that we found in the House of PMO Essentials for PMO Managers course is that there’s an expectation that when we get up to a manager that we’re still going to continue on doing all of this work that we did as an analyst but we’re just going to be better at it and kind of be the lead at it.

I think actually what we want to be when we get to that manager role is recognise that actually there’s some more interesting things to do I think at the PMO Manager role and demonstrating that actually what you start caring about as a PMO Manager or and actually start becoming accountable for is understanding how your PO adds value to the organisation your favourite word value.

So it’s about making sure that actually as a PMO manager you know you you’re not going to necessarily just continue doing the same thing for the next five or 10 years but you’re understanding the metrics of how you know kind of what makes a pay more successful and what makes a appear more successful in your organization and to me that’s the that’s the real kind of Step change when we’re moving up to a PMO manager role.

So, I think when you’re trying to kind of land that it’s being able to kind of look at perhaps the PMO you’re in and if you’re sitting there as a PMO Analyst, thinking about well why do we do the services we do, what difference is it making to the organisation, to the project or program and being able to articulate that.

So, you can kind of do that in your current role but as a PMO manager you’re going to start being accountable for that so I’ve been able to demonstrate that thinking I think is a key part and moving to that role

Okay what’s the difference between a PMO manager and a PMO lead?

Oh, interesting so the PMO manager role tends to be in an organisation where they have a PMO and it’s defined as a part of the organisation structure so if you looked at the organisation structure and it had departments and it would have a department that said PMO and you’ve got a group of people working in the PMO.

A PMO lead typically is going to be where you’ve got a number of people who report into perhaps the head of delivery, but they don’t necessarily see it as a PMO department there’s a lot of PMO activities that just need to be undertaken often.

PMO lead is just a single person what we would affectionally call a poo yes um a project or a PMO-of-one where actually they can think about having a PMO they’re kind of putting a lead in place to start looking at what those activities might be and perhaps thinking about who else in the organization is currently doing bits of that role.

PMO Leads in my head is in an organization where it’s less established than where you would have a PMO manager.

There’s also grading and pay structures that mean there’s a difference there in that we can’t call you a manager however you’re doing a lot of the manager that we can only you that title um I think I’ve also come across PM lead having no um managerial responsibility or line management responsibility so that might be the reason why it’s called a PMO lead rather than manager.

So essentially you might have a project manager delivery manager who will have all of the project managers reporting into them and you also are the PM lead reports into that kind of delivery manager you’re doing PMO stuff, but you’re not necessarily classed as a manager.

Yeah yes it’s a minefield it is but to me the kind of the real step up from a analyst to a manager is that recognition of why we doing what we do and how it adds value which then also kind of leads on to the question of recognising when things have stopped adding value and being able to kind of prioritise what are the things we should be doing in that PMO.

Yeah it’s very easy just to kind of keep on going and again I did a piece of not so long ago we did an in-house course on PMO services to an organisation they said Oh Eileen come and just do a little bit of help with us to do some coaching on kind of our service catalogue

It was really interesting because when they looked at they what they had as what they were there to do and then their services, there was a complete mismatch but they wanted to kind of keep doing all of the things they were currently doing and it was a case well actually if you’ve been set up to do something different you actually need to look wider than what you’re currently doing say what is it you need to do to be deemed successful because otherwise the people are going to come in six 12 months’ time say we set you up to do this but you’ve been busy doing other things that perhaps haven’t added the value or have led the pay more the way that the organization wanted them to

Yeah I think just coming back to that question then about how do you land a PMO manager/lead role I think one of the biggest questions we get is that gap between analyst and manager and what you know you’re currently sitting there as a PMO analyst but do want to think about moving up at the kind of next level what can you do about that gap because it can feel massive between.

That is a classic you know in terms of that’s exactly what the House of PMO Essentials for PMO  Managers courses is about that says actually this will tell you and give you an understanding about what the manager’s role is about and how you kind of do that step change so you’re still going to use some of the competencies you’ve used in your analyst role but it’s that kind of Step change and helping you understand how you manage the services rather than just do the services

Yeah, there’s the other qualification the P3O Foundation that anybody could do that so you know it doesn’t matter if you’re analyst, manager, whatever but it’s the P3O Practitioner that tends to be the manager doing that so that could be something to consider is doing the second part of P3O if you’ve done the first one.

I think that you know kind of the difference that the P3O is really based kind of how do I design a PMO and do you know kind of make it the right thing for the organisation the House of PMO Essentials is what are the skills and competencies I need and how I’m going to use them in that role so kind of attacking that role from two different ends.

Yes, the other thing of course is that I think again I think we’ve done a session on this I can’t remember where or what it was called but there’s a bit in there about there are things you can be doing in the job itself yeah so if you look at training and development they have this thing called 70-20-10 which is 70% of your development comes on the job 20% is from other means that could be you know you’re doing reading on the subject or you go to a conference or watching a webinar, then the 10% is the kind of formal qualifications which is what we talked about.

70% a big chunk of it actually you could start thinking about how do I get myself ready for that kind of role what constitutes the 70% of things I can be thinking of right now and we’ve got you know there things like you that that that that you know if we think about.

That’s the conversation you have with your line manager and say during the next six/ 12 months I’d really like to get some experience in this and again one of those things I’m going back to  value is about say well actually we’re going to be introducing a new risk management process we’re going to be introducing an issue escalation process can I take a lead on that because part of what you thinking in when you’re doing that Services why am I doing that service who am I doing that service for who are the customers which is the type of thinking you’re going to need across all of the services when you become a manager.

Yeah so it’s about think and again the competency for is great thing well actually you know looking at the job uh the role profile for a manager I’ve got risk management skills and I can support projects and programs actually now I’m going to have to think about introducing that service what are the centre of excellence activities and the competencies and

The competency framework is in essence if you don’t want you know not 100% sure what they are is it allows you to do an assessment based on what you’re doing right now what the core competences that you’d see in PMO.

You can do a self-assessment against those which will give you an idea then about potentially where you might have some gaps because when you do a self-assessment it’s not just about doing it this is me today it’s set up in such a way so you can do a comparison against any of the roles and there’s four levels there’s admin analyst manager and director.

So in theory if you’re wanting to land that PMO manager role and you’re currently an analyst could do a self-assessment based on your current analyst role but click the button it will show you where your gaps there against that manager one so straight away gives you an opportunity to talk to a line manager in the performance review and development plans at actually I’m looking at my self-assessment and it’s showing me some of these gaps can we have a conversation about it

There you go you know but remember it’s the 70% of where our professional development comes from and there’s a lot of different ways to do it you know it’s pairing with other people having a job but um it’s pushing yourself out of the comfort zone like Eileen has just said taking on an initiative is one.

Mentoring or helping somebody else is a learning experience that could give you an edge on um how I you know what’s my management style going to be so if I’m going to be a PMO manager and never managed people here before in my life I have actually no clue about what my management style might be so today you can start mentoring somebody else in the group for example I give you an idea of but oh well actually I’m quite good at this you know so it’s an interesting one.