John McIntyre
Founder, HotPMO
PMO Information Roundup – February 2026
Each month I trawl by the analysis papers, stories, and podcasts so that you don’t must. Right here’s what caught my eye this month.
A PMO’s 16-Yr Journey: From IT Assist to Board-Stage Authority
The standout learn this month is a longitudinal case examine revealed within the Enterprise Course of Administration Journal by António Monteiro at NOVA College Lisbon. It follows a single PMO inside a big European organisation over sixteen years — from its founding in 2009 as a small help unit inside IT, throughout to its present place as an enterprise-wide strategic perform reporting on to the board.
The factor that struck me about this paper was how recognisable the journey is. The PMO began life doing what plenty of PMOs begin off doing: reporting challenge standing, coordinating IT initiatives, preserving documentation so as. No affect on challenge choice. No seat on the technique desk. Because the PMO Supervisor put it, “The selections remained solely with administration…we had no affect on choices”
The primary shift was when the organisation began seeing fragmented processes, duplicated effort and delays. To sort out this, the PMO was given a broader remit to introduce commonplace strategies and an elevated remit for vendor administration. It was nonetheless inside IT, nonetheless not a choice making physique, however that they had moved from admin help to one thing nearer to governance.
The following key shift was when the PMO was pulled out of IT solely and given a direct reporting line to senior management. With that got here the duty for strategic planning, portfolio prioritisation, challenge choice, advantages administration and classes realized. The board have been clear concerning the rationale: “We wanted a PMO that seemed on the complete firm. The earlier IT-centred construction might not help the dimensions and strategic relevance of our portfolio.”
Curiously, when it got here to the organisation adopting AI in 2024, it was the PMO who have been mandated to steer the organisations AI shift. Why? In response to a board member of the corporate, “The PMO was the one unit with sufficient maturity and cross-organisational view to manipulate the complexity of AI adoption.”
I’ve seen this sort of journey play out with our personal shoppers. A PMO that begins inside a single division proves its worth, after which will get requested the query “May we get this throughout the broader organisation?”. Additionally “How can we utilise the abilities in our PMO crew to assist us with non-traditional PMO exercise?” On this case, it was AI. However I’ve seen PMOs tackle related challenges deploying BI options and even robotic course of automation to assist the organisation obtain its objectives.
For me no less than, this journey feels extra actual than the standard textbook perspective of a PMO that regularly works up by a maturity mannequin from degree 1-4 throughout varied competencies. The PMOs that thrive, are those who align to the actual wants of the enterprise.
One other factor that was attention-grabbing within the paper was a desk mapping widespread PMO capabilities in opposition to the analysis papers which have cited them over almost twenty years, beginning with Monique Aubry’s foundational 2007 examine. What stood out for me (as you’ll be able to see within the chart under), was the longevity of among the core PMO capabilities.
Issues like creating commonplace methodologies have been cited constantly throughout each main examine from 2007 proper by 2025. We frequently discuss PMOs as always evolving – and they’re. However beneath that evolution, is a remarkably secure core of companies that PMOs have at all times delivered, and proceed to ship.
Learn the total paper: Monteiro, A. (2026). The evolving mandate of challenge administration workplaces: governance, innovation, and efficiency, proof from a longitudinal case examine. Enterprise Course of Administration Journal. DOI: 10.1108/BPMJ-09-2025-1464
What the US Authorities Can Train PMOs about Shared Companies
This one comes from a barely sudden angle. The US Authorities Accountability Workplace revealed a report into the adoption challenges going through federal shared companies — overlaying areas like HR and cybersecurity, not challenge administration. However whenever you learn it by a PMO lens, the parallels are putting. A number of our PMOs are successfully shared companies. We offer companies to a number of components of the enterprise, throughout departments, generally throughout firms inside a gaggle. So the challenges the GAO recognized land very near residence.
First, and unsurprisingly, position readability and robust management come by as structural enablers. Shared companies want govt sponsors, named and empowered decision-makers, clear escalation paths, and lively cross-portfolio governance boards. In case your PMO helps a number of capabilities, you want governance above it that may take care of the issues that span throughout portfolios. None of that’s new, but it surely’s reassuring to see it confirmed from a very completely different area.
The report additionally highlights what occurs whenever you mandate the usage of a shared service with out genuinely supporting it. They offer examples the place departments have been informed “you have to use the shared service until you could have an authorised enterprise case to go exterior it.” Nicely-intentioned, however with out advocacy from management and real buy-in, what you truly get is workarounds. Individuals discover artistic methods to bounce across the guidelines somewhat than use the service correctly. Should you’ve ever launched a PMO course of or template that individuals instantly discovered methods to keep away from, you’ll recognise this sample immediately.
One other discovering that resonated: the shared companies on provide didn’t at all times match the precise issues departments have been making an attempt to unravel. There have been gaps. What number of instances have you ever moved into a brand new PMO position and introduced your current toolbox with you, solely to search out it doesn’t fairly match? Each organisation is exclusive. It’s essential to hearken to what the enterprise truly wants and ensure that what we’re proposing as the answer matches the calls for of the enterprise and the forms of tasks they’re delivering, somewhat than simply making use of what labored elsewhere.
And eventually, the advantages query. The GAO discovered that shared companies genuinely add worth — however that worth is usually painfully laborious to articulate. The essential shift they advocate is shifting from anecdotal tales about how nice the service is to tangible, trackable metrics. Right here’s the road that needs to be on a poster in each PMO: in case you don’t actively monitor advantages, the narrative will inevitably default to the PMO being seen as overhead. Value remembering subsequent time somebody asks what the PMO truly does.
Learn the report: GAO-26-108014, Federal Shared Companies: Adoption Challenges Underscore the Want for Constant Management
AI Transformation Works By Need, Not Imposition
For the podcast listeners, the February episode of PMI’s The Shift Code is value your time. It options Luisa Barraza, VP of Individuals at Pfizer, speaking about AI transformation — and what makes it attention-grabbing is that she’s approaching it from a folks perspective, not a know-how one.
Her central message is that transformation doesn’t work by imposition; it really works by want. You possibly can’t simply hand folks an AI device and anticipate them to learn from it. Success comes when folks see private worth within the device, perceive the profit it brings, and really feel that it genuinely makes their work higher.
We discuss this precept with transformation programmes on a regular basis — meet folks the place they’re, perceive their issues, align the answer to their wants. However it bears repeating within the AI context, as a result of there’s plenty of stress proper now to roll out AI instruments shortly, and the temptation to impose somewhat than have interaction may be very actual. As Barraza places it, “AI transformations don’t fail as a result of the AI is weak. They fail as a result of the rollout is misaligned with human wants.” Exhausting to argue with that.
Take heed to the episode: The Shift Code — How Pfizer’s Luisa Barraza Rewrites the Guidelines of Transformation
Individuals on the Coronary heart of Projectification
Lastly, the International Journal of Managing Tasks in Enterprise has devoted its newest challenge to a theme that deserves way more consideration: folks on the coronary heart of tasks. The editors observe that current scholarship has typically prioritised systemic, organisational, or institutional views on the expense of the person. They’re proper, they usually’re making an attempt to counter it.
There are some helpful threads working by the papers on this challenge. On moral tensions in challenge decision-making, the important thing takeaway is that having values is nice, however values alone don’t shift resolution behaviour: you want methods and constructions to again them up. In case your PMO has a set of rules on a wall someplace however no mechanisms to embed them in day-to-day choices, they’re simply phrases.
On data switch, the message is equally direct: data doesn’t mechanically switch between tasks. We assume it magically diffuses throughout the organisation, but it surely doesn’t. Social relationships are what allow data to circulation. Should you’re not actively creating these circumstances and adopting practices similar to Call3, your classes realized are simply paperwork that no one reads.
The journal has additionally put out a name for papers, and the questions they’ve posed are value reflecting on even when you’ve got no intention of writing a tutorial paper. Consider them as a lens for your individual organisation. How is working in tasks shaping folks’s id, motivation, and profession paths? Are tasks serving to folks develop, or are they creating instability and fragmentation? Are we constructing functionality and engagement, or inflicting overload, short-termism, and fatigue? Do schooling, position, hierarchy, or tradition affect who can take part and progress in challenge careers? And are our constructions truly enabling folks to achieve tasks, or are governance, autonomy, and management creating the incorrect circumstances?
Good questions, all of them. Value a quiet ten minutes of reflection with a espresso.
This roundup relies on my month-to-month PMO Information section from the PMO HotHouse, run by the Home of PMO. Should you’re not already a part of that group, it’s nicely value a glance.
In case your PMO goes by its personal evolution – whether or not that’s ranging from scratch, increasing your mandate, or determining the place AI matches – get in contact. It’s what we do.
The put up PMO Information Roundup – February 2026 appeared first on HotPMO.