Establishing, maturing and running PMOs. Portfolio governance and prioritisation that executives trust and act on, built on 15+ years inside large tech organisations.
A selection of PMO and portfolio roles, from building a PMO from nothing to running portfolio governance under regulatory deadlines. Client names are anonymised.
Situation: No unified PMO and no consolidated view of the portfolio across business units. Management could not see which projects delivered and which did not, so resources and investments were prioritised without a common basis.
Action: Reported directly to the CEO and owned the design and operation of the PMO. Defined project governance, the reporting model and the portfolio prioritisation process with executive management, and anchored them in the executive decision rhythm. Set up portfolio reporting to management and board, quality assurance of business cases and investment proposals, and handled stakeholder conflicts at VP and CxO level. Grounded in MoP and P3O.
Result: Full transparency across the portfolio. All but one of the projects brought under governance moved from red to green and the last was closed down. Time from deviation to management decision was cut by more than two months.
Situation: No consolidated project management function and no PMO. Projects ran inconsistently, lead times were long and management lacked a reliable picture of progress and risk.
Action: Took line responsibility for the project managers and built the department and the PMO. Introduced a common PRINCE2-based project model with stage gates, a reporting standard and risk management, and made sure it was adopted rather than left as a document. Coached each project manager individually in execution and stakeholder management.
Result: 35-40% shorter project lead time, and a self-directed team where the project managers drove progress and escalation themselves.
Situation: The department needed to deliver more and more complex client projects at the same quality, but had no common methodological standard and no systematic resource and capacity planning.
Action: Defined the department strategy and drove capability building, including coaching, certification and mentor programmes. Optimised project processes and introduced new methods and tools. Owned resource and capacity planning and budgeting, and priced client bids and calculated business cases using the company's financial models.
Result: 15-20% faster project execution. Bid win rate of 70-80% on the client proposals she worked on.
Situation: A large set of financial systems had to be migrated to meet regulatory requirements. The migrations were mandated, so the business units owning the systems had little appetite, while the compliance deadline could not move.
Action: Governed the full portfolio of concurrent migrations and the supplier's delivery to the client. Built support inside the business units instead of escalating, aligned scope project by project, and introduced a common governance model with consistent reporting. Directed a shared pool of specialist technicians across the portfolio according to where they were needed.
Result: The entire portfolio was delivered inside the regulatory deadline. Business units that had resisted at the start finished the programme satisfied with the outcome.
Impact is shown as ranges. Exact figures and client names are shared in conversation where confidentiality allows.
Book a 20-minute intro call. No obligation. CV and case material tailored to your client proposal.
Book an intro call