PMO: the comprehensive insurance for your Supply Chain projects

The PMO is a facil­i­ta­tor of suc­cess: it is the inter­face that coor­di­nates and steers the project play­ers .

Applic­a­ble to all types of project, this func­tion is com­mon for IT projects involv­ing the imple­men­ta­tion of an infor­ma­tion sys­tem or the implementation/adaptation of an orga­ni­za­tion’s processes.

What­ev­er your busi­ness, trans­for­ma­tion projects have far-reach­ing con­se­quences for the com­pa­ny, and suc­cess is inevitable. PMOE ensures good under­stand­ing and coor­di­na­tion between project par­ties, and ensures suc­cess with the least pos­si­ble risk.

ALOER sup­ports you in man­ag­ing your ERP and Sup­ply Chain projects by offer­ing its PMO services.

What are the roles and characteristics of the Project Owner, the Project Manager and the PMO ?

First, let’s dis­tin­guish the 3 roles.

The Project Owner

The project own­er is a legal enti­ty, in most cas­es a com­pa­ny . As the client, he is also the own­er of the project. It is the enti­ty that express­es the need, finances it and uses the future solution.

The Project Own­er and its role :

• defines func­tion­al requirements,
• sets the perimeter,
• draws up oper­at­ing procedures,
• con­ducts testing
• and, val­i­dates func­tion­al responses.

Project Manager

Project Man­ag­er (PM) refers to the peo­ple respon­si­ble for the tech­ni­cal imple­men­ta­tion of solu­tions. The Project Man­ag­er sup­plies the prod­uct. This may be a ser­vice provider or an inter­nal resource with­in the cus­tomer company.

The Project Man­ag­er gath­ers and trans­lates the needs of the Project Own­er, stud­ies and val­i­dates fea­si­bil­i­ty. It is com­mit­ted to the real­iza­tion and pro­duc­tion of the solu­tion. It ensures that it com­plies with the spec­i­fi­ca­tions and func­tion­al spec­i­fi­ca­tions signed by the project owner.

The Project Man­ag­er guar­an­tees the tech­ni­cal qual­i­ty of the pro­posed solu­tion, and com­pli­ance with costs and dead­lines. It installs, starts up, oper­ates and guar­an­tees ser­vice qual­i­ty. It may also be required to car­ry out upgrades.

The project man­ag­er is the con­duc­tor of (IT) projects. As such, it must ensure :

• the smooth run­ning of tasks,
• plan­ning and coordination,
• ensure the qual­i­ty of deliverables,
• and be a priv­i­leged inter­locu­tor for the project owner.

PMO — Project Management Officer

The Project Man­age­ment Offi­cer (PMO) con­sists in sup­port­ing the peo­ple in charge of the project. 

Its role is to :

• facil­i­tate the project own­er’s focus on project management,
• assist the project own­er in deci­sion-mak­ing and analy­sis, par­tic­u­lar­ly of risks,
• pro­pose action plans.

In oth­er words, it strength­ens the team as a coun­ter­weight to the inte­gra­tion team. The PMO also warns of (pos­si­ble) project drifts.

It orga­nizes dia­logue and acts as a link between the Project Own­er and the Project Man­ag­er. Thanks to her dual skills, both tech­ni­cal (IT) and func­tion­al, she bridges the gap between busi­ness needs and IT implementation.

In addi­tion, PMO sup­ports and helps process man­agers and key-users to grow in their project and IT skills (eg: ERP).

The use of project man­age­ment offi­cers or con­sul­tants is a com­mon prac­tice in IT projects and the instal­la­tion of infor­ma­tion systems. 

The same prac­tice applies to soft­ware projects spe­cial­iz­ing in sup­ply chain management.

Final­ly, this pro­file is an essen­tial neu­tral link:

• for the suc­cess of com­plex projects,
• when pro­found par­a­digm shifts are at stake,
• when they entail man­age­ment changes for future users and their company.

Why use a consultant for your project management?

Accord­ing to the Stan­dish Group’s annu­al CHAOS 2020 Beyond Infin­i­ty report, only 31% of projects are on sched­ule, on bud­get and meet user expectations. 

With this in mind, it’s only nat­ur­al to do every­thing in one’s pow­er to ensure the suc­cess of one’s projects.

Being accom­pa­nied by an PMO con­sul­tant means :

• antic­i­pate team resis­tance,
• theassur­ance of com­plet­ing the project on time,
• secure your bud­get,
• and guar­an­tee the qual­i­ty of deliverables.

The PMO con­sul­tant con­tributes his exper­tise and knowl­edge of project man­age­ment and/or IS tools. It acts as a “qual­i­ty con­trol body” for projects with over-ambi­tious, ill-defined, poor­ly man­aged or poor­ly mon­i­tored objec­tives. He’s the ide­al per­son to iden­ti­fy the future impact of the project on the organization.

Last­ly, it antic­i­pates and par­tic­i­pates in change man­age­ment, with­out which projects are high­ly risky. This man­age­ment by a neu­tral inter­me­di­ary between the project own­er and the con­tract­ing author­i­ty is a real added value. 

A PMO role is often cou­pled with change man­age­ment , as it his cen­tral posi­tionto iden­ti­fy the prob­lems of accept­ing new solu­tions.

Some typical PMO consultant assignments

The PMO helps to man­age the project by pro­vid­ing the appro­pri­ate method and tools, and by propos­ing a method­ol­o­gy that encom­pass­es all project stake­hold­ers. In addi­tion, depend­ing on require­ments, it may be respon­si­ble for :

• Plan­ning and bud­get management
• Dis­tri­b­u­tion of reports
• Sup­pli­er follow-up
• Imple­men­ta­tion and fol­low-up of actions
• Prepa­ra­tion of recur­ring project items: Project Comi­tee, Pilot Comi­tee, meetings
• Alert about project drifts
• Fol­low-up of com­mu­ni­ca­tion actions
• Noti­fy of changes in scope or functionality
• Analyse needs
• Func­tion­al specifications
• Func­tion­al tests

The PMO consultant, coordinator of your Supply Chain project

In his role as project man­age­ment offi­cer, the con­sul­tant con­nects with the pro­jec­t’s stakeholders:

• Ser­vice man­age­ment: to ori­ent user needs, pro­vide infor­ma­tion on the project and help the project team gain recognition.
• Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee: help onboard man­agers, assist with nego­ti­a­tions where nec­es­sary, pro­mote the project
• Project team: sup­port changes, help with reflec­tion, role as facil­i­ta­tor and rec­on­cil­er between project own­er and project manager
• Key users: lis­tens to needs, helps com­mu­ni­cate with the project team, defus­es con­flicts and opposition
• HR depart­ment: informs of train­ing needs, reports on project changes
• Change man­age­ment team (if not direct­ly involved in the same role as the PMO, and depend­ing on the scope of the project): ana­lyz­ing the impact of change, help­ing with com­mu­ni­ca­tion, defus­ing fears and risks.

The con­sul­tant con­tributes to good rela­tions between the var­i­ous mem­bers involved in the project, and thus to the over­all smooth run­ning of the project. A real team effort!

ALOER: support for your Supply Chain projects with PMOs 

As already men­tioned, infor­ma­tion sys­tems projects, includ­ing sup­ply chain man­age­ment, are high­ly strate­gic for com­pa­nies. This very seri­ous mat­ter can­not be entrust­ed by the project own­er to the con­trac­tor. Busi­ness needs must be clear­ly defined, as must future tools or “solu­tions”.

ALOER brings togeth­er a team of senior Sup­ply Chain con­sul­tants:

• a per­fect com­mand of Sup­ply Chain soft­ware and its deploy­ment, as well as the skills and busi­ness expe­ri­ence need­ed through­out the deploy­ment of the project,
• capa­ble of cov­er­ing a wide range of project man­age­ment tasks, and can be adapt­ed accord­ing to project needs and the capa­bil­i­ties and matu­ri­ty of the project owner.
• iden­ti­fies the risks and pit­falls to be avoid­ed in the process: from the design phase through to project launch and deployment.

Supply Chain Project Management

For 17 years, ALOER has sup­port­ed the suc­cess of its cus­tomers’ Sup­ply Chain projects.

Sup­ply chain soft­ware deploy­ment projects can be com­plex, whether they involve S&OP process man­age­ment, demand fore­cast­ing, plan­ning, sched­ul­ing or ware­house management. 

This is also the case for Sup­ply Chain projects such as con­tin­u­ous improve­ment and flow reorganization.

Our employ­ees are expert con­sul­tants. They have sig­nif­i­cant expe­ri­ence in deploy­ing sup­ply chain man­age­ment solu­tions for man­u­fac­tur­ers and retail­ers. As a result, they car­ry out their PMO mis­sions with the high­est standards.

Through­out their assign­ment, PMO con­sul­tants apply a high lev­el of know-how and skills: func­tion­al, IT, orga­ni­za­tion­al, man­age­r­i­al, project man­age­ment, rela­tion­al, oper­a­tional… and proven resources (method­ol­o­gy, tools…) to guar­an­tee the suc­cess of the project entrust­ed to them.

Project management for your ERP projects

Like the deploy­ment of spe­cial­ized sup­ply chain soft­ware, ERP soft­ware projects are vital and far-reach­ing for any company.

The ALOER con­sult­ing firm is com­mit­ted to pro­vid­ing you with the best pos­si­ble sup­port in the imple­men­ta­tion of your project, while fos­ter­ing a close and trust­ing cus­tomer rela­tion­ship and respect­ing project deadlines.

Our func­tion­al con­sul­tants are with you from the spec­i­fi­ca­tion stage right through to project imple­men­ta­tion, to help you trans­form your infor­ma­tion system.

Are you ready to succeed in your projects?

The suc­cess of any project, espe­cial­ly an IT project, large­ly depends on the abil­i­ty of the var­i­ous play­ers involved to com­mu­ni­cate and make them­selves understood. 

It is in this con­text that the role of the PMO, as a neu­tral and priv­i­leged inter­face in a poten­tial­ly con­flict­ual envi­ron­ment, comes into play to sig­nif­i­cant­ly lim­it the risks of failure.