The Agile PMO

The Agile PMO examines how the adoption of Agile development processes such as Scrum affects the traditional functions of a Project Management Office (PMO). Rather than treating an Agile PMO as a fundamentally different type of organization, the paper asks how Agile practices change the way existing Project, Program, and Portfolio Management responsibilities are carried out.

The paper distinguishes among Project Management, Program Management, and Portfolio Management, examining the different objectives and responsibilities at each level. It then maps Scrum practices onto project- and program-management activities, showing where Agile changes traditional management practices and where it does not.

One of the paper's most interesting findings is that the apparent differences between Agile and traditional management decrease as you move up the management hierarchy. Agile has its greatest practical impact at the project level, a smaller impact at the program level, and relatively little direct impact at the portfolio level. Yet Portfolio Management is already naturally aligned with an important Agile principle: continually reassessing priorities and responding to changes in the business environment rather than treating a long-term plan as fixed.

As the paper observes, “It is an interesting irony that the Agile approach of frequent re-assessment, which often seems odd to classically-trained project managers, fits naturally with the perspective of Portfolio Management.” The paper concludes that one benefit of Agile is therefore not simply a collection of new project-management practices, but a unifying way of thinking about planning and adapting at every level of the organization—from portfolio strategy down to project execution.