A project management office (PMO) typically focuses on project activities, resources and budgets required to execute and deliver projects. Moving the focus from the traditional tactical PMO to a strategic enabler allows company leadership to plan for innovative project efforts.

The PMO may need to integrate data from various sources to create comprehensive views with data visualizations that provide appropriate context. This can be accomplished by investing in data assets, supporting a more agile approach, enhancing change management methodologies and/or training resource managers on data input. Leaders should not only focus on the data and technology implementation, but apply the same attention to the foundational processes needed behind the scenes.

There is power in data delivered through dynamic visualizations. Enabling automated, transparent views into how an organization is run saves a tremendous amount of time and allows leaders to effortlessly view the state of the organization. It promotes in-depth conversations and evaluations based on objective data, which enables informed, metric-driven decisions that strengthen an organization’s efficiencies.

This innovative approach can enable decision-makers to view various data points throughout their organization, including the types of projects in progress, number of hours committed, management ratios and capital and operational financial information. Having the ability to review resource hours to anticipate when there may be a downturn or a spike, monitor departmental attrition or anticipate change management allows for informed staffing and budget allocation decisions. With these critical insights, it is easier to assess future resourcing needs and skill demands.

The PMO of the future will change to realign with business transformation and become a strategic business partner. There truly is power in data delivered through dynamic visualizations, which allows PMOs to leverage processes and offers the discipline necessary to act as an innovative enabler in this transformational approach.

Guest Contributor Amanda Jones is senior director of the Enterprise Portfolio Office in the Technology, Innovation and Performance (TIP) Group at PPD. Amanda oversees a team of individuals with skills in project and portfolio management, compliance and validation, business systems analytics and customer service and communication. Her team’s focus is on the delivery of the PPD TIP capital investment portfolio. Amanda’s team has been a key driver in the cross-functional collaboration of TIP’s reporting and project delivery efforts.

This article was reprinted from Volume 24, Issue 04, of The CenterWatch Monthly, an industry leading publication providing hard-hitting, authoritative business and financial coverage of the clinical research space. The Action Items section features short columns  focusing on actionable or how-to advice from clinical trial professionals. To submit an Action Item, please contact editorial@centerwatch.com. Subscribe >>