The Power to Pivot: Improving Your PMO’s Change Management Game

As project management offices (PMOs) assume a more strategic role, they’re increasingly accountable for not only successful project execution, but also value delivery. Every project requires some component of change to realize its value, and the better that change is executed, the better the value can be realized. Along with the shift in emphasis comes the opportunity—and need—to help the organization manage and adapt to change.

That means change management must be as much a competency of a PMO as the core practices that ensure project delivery. Importantly, it also means PMOs must consider how change impacts the portfolio.

Here’s how strategic PMOs ensure change management is a priority and help their organizations gain the outcomes and sustain the benefits of their projects.

Incorporate Change Management Throughout Your Toolkit

Change management is always part of good project management. But one way to ensure project teams consider change management is to keep it in front of them.

Codify which type of initiatives require a separate change management workstream. For example, you could base the requirement on change risk, such as projects that impact more than 20 people or touch a critical business system like your ERP. Or you might demand a change management workstream for your most important, game-changing projects, where you absolutely must realize the full value.

Similarly, intentionally design project tools to include practical steps. If you require every project to have a charter, include a standard section where project leaders identify all the people, systems, and processes that the project will affect.

On project schedules, include timing for detailed communication methods, stakeholder approvals, feedback collection, training sessions, and the like. Be sure to consider change management throughout the project lifecycle, not just as a check-box exercise at the beginning and the end.

And if you want project teams to emphasize change management, make it count by including change-related metrics into the way you evaluate project success. These could include end-user adoption, process adherence, stakeholder sentiment, or changes in behavior.

Take a Portfolio View to Help Drive Change

One of the leading causes of project failure and reduced outcomes is overwhelming people with too much change, too fast. In addition to being able to drive change through project tools, PMOs have a unique perspective into the work of the organization, enabling them to help manage change and prevent change fatigue.

The portfolio view provides insight into where future change will happen across the organization. The PMO can see when changes might conflict, like two initiatives that impact the same process, or when one project demands a team innovate while another project seeks to tighten the team’s controls. They can also see when multiple planned changes are stacking up on one team.

The PMO can then bring this information to executive stakeholders’ attention, informing strategic decisions. The PMO might recommend staggering project rollouts based on impact to the strategic goal to ensure that one element is adopted successfully before stacking on another one. A PMO focused on strategic outcomes might even spot a project with large change implications that outweigh the potential benefits and flag this in portfolio prioritization discussions.

Likewise, PMOs are well-equipped to identify change fatigue. The project teams may experience the effects but often can’t do anything about it, while the senior leaders aren’t close enough to recognize what’s happening.

When PMO leaders recognize and flag signs of change saturation, they enable the organization to respond. They can support appreciation events or stress-busting activities for project teams, or recommend ways to adjust the rollout schedule or bundle changes so there are fewer overall change initiatives.

Becoming masters of change management helps PMOs ensure their projects deliver strategic value. Ultimately, this requires supporting their project leaders and teams as well as the organization’s overall change capacity and capability.