Understanding the Organizational Placement of the PSO

There are three organizational placements for the PSO, as shown in Figure 13-1.

At the enterprise level, a PSO is usually called by some name like Enterprise PSO (EPSO) that suggests it serves the entire enterprise. I have seen the following two variations of EPSOs:

• Centralized — In this version, the EPSO provides all of the services to all project teams corporate-wide that any PSO would provide.
• Decentralized — This version (a.k.a. hub-and-spoke) often has a policy and procedure responsibility with satellite PSOs providing the actual functions in accordance with the established policy and procedures.

Figure 13-1: Organizational placement of the PSO

Both models can be effective. The size of the organization with respect to the number of projects needing support is the best determinant of structure, with the decentralized structure favoring the larger organization. There really are no hard-and-fast rules here.

The PSO can also serve the needs of a significant part of the enterprise — such as at the division or business-unit level. The most common example is the IT division. Here the PSO serves the needs of all the IT professionals in the organization (IT PSO in Figure 13-1, for example). Because this PSO is discipline-specific, it will probably offer project support services tailored to the needs of the IT projects. It may also offer services specific to the needs of teams that are using various systems development processes. In other words, a division-level PSO may offer not only project management support services, but also services specific to the discipline.

The PSO can also serve the needs of a single program. As shown in Figure 13-1, there may be several of these programs even within a single division. This is a common occurrence in the IT division. These PSOs are temporary. When the program that this type of PSO supports is completed, the PSO is disbanded. A past client of mine used this structure quite effectively. Whenever the team size exceeded 30, the client formed a PSO. The project was decomposed into subprojects, with each subproject having a project manager. The project managers were accountable to the program director and were part of the PSO staff of this project. For every 30 team members thereafter, another layer of project managers was added. The PSO was staffed by the program director, a program assistant, and one administrative assistant. The program assistant worked directly with each project manager in a coaching and mentoring role. The administrative assistant helped the project managers and their teams with the typical administrative functions. Team size varied from three to six. When the project was complete, the 30 or more members returned to their home departments.