Case study: Project Management Office implementation in a multilocation organization

The Project Management Office (PMO) is a mechanism used to address common project management issues in an organization in order to support and facilitate project success. A PMO may perform these functions; Provide a standardized Project Management methodology with tools, mentoring and training, integrate project management process and infrastructure within the enterprise , oversee the entire project cycle, from project approval to project closure and evaluate the project performance. The first PMO was established in 1997 in central R&D at Arçelik. As a part of globalization goal, the upper management requires to monitor projects simultaneously. Thus, PMOs were spread to the Product Manufacturing Plants. Since it requires a cultural change within the organization it takes substantial time and effort to implement Project Management throughout the whole organization. Currently, more than 500 projects, consist both Production and R&D Projects, are running concurrently in Production and Technology Group of Arcelik. Structure, role and evolution of the PMOs as well as the added value will be elaborated. Lessons learned and discussion about PMO´s value for an organization will be shared.