Why Bother? (A Quick Reality Check)

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You want structure, clarity, and accountability. You don’t want endless steering committees, eight-layer status updates, or a PMO so dense it collapses under its own weight. A lightweight PMO is the antidote: fast, flexible, and just enough to show that someone’s steering the ship.

Sixty days is tight, but so is your calendar. You’re here because you either volunteered, were volunteered, or realized this thing won’t run itself.

One of my favorite quotes, “No one is coming”. In other words, its up to you.

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Phase 1 (Days 1–15): Foundation First, Bureaucracy Never

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Step 1: Define What “P” You’re Managing

Project? Program? Portfolio? Pick one — or pick all three and pretend it’s strategic. Either way, decide what the PMO will actually oversee. If everything’s a priority, nothing is.

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Step 2: Find an Executive Who Can Say “Yes”

Your PMO needs air cover. You don’t need someone who shows up to kickoffs and disappears. You need someone who:

• Backs you in meetings
• Has a budget
• Knows what a project is and just as important, what it’s not.

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Step 3: Survey the Landscape (a.k.a. What’s Already Broken)

Before building, take inventory:

• Who’s tracking what?
• Where is it tracked?
• What tools exist (besides post-it notes and vibes)?
• Who’s acting as a PM without the title?

Spoiler: You’re not starting from zero. You’re starting from scattered.

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Step 4: Set Boundaries Early (Or Regret It Later)

Define what your PMO will do — and what it won’t.

• Intake and prioritization? Yes.
• Rescuing every late project? No.
• Slide design for execs? Absolutely not.
  • This happens all too often. Executives/companies think project managers are to schedule meetings and make v17 of the latest bloated powerpoint. Just don’t.

Put it in writing. Distribute it to everyone. Refer to it often.

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Phase 2 (Days 16–30): Stand It Up Without Tipping It Over

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Step 5: Choose Tools That People Won’t Hate

You’re not launching a tool suite. You’re enabling clarity.

• Pick one project tracker (Jira, Asana, ClickUp — flip a coin)
  • You should pick one that can serve the needs of all stakeholder groups not 3 for 3 different types of stakeholders..
• Use a dashboard that doesn’t require a decoder ring.
• Create a simple intake form (Google Forms, Airtable — anything sane)

Minimum viable tooling > bloated stack with no users.

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Step 6: Build the Anti-Governance Governance Model

Call it what you want: playbook, delivery framework, decision rhythm. Just don’t call it “governance” unless you like being ignored. Include:

• How projects get in
• How work is prioritized
• How status is reviewed
• How issues are escalated

Keep it lean, or you’ll end up managing the process, not the work.

Can’t emphasize this enough. Process for the sake of process is just busy work so people can pretend to contribute.

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Step 7: Reporting That Doesn’t Induce Naps

Design a cadence that informs, not bores. This should be tailored to your audience. Work with your stakeholders to find what makes sense to report.

• Monthly portfolio reviews
• Visual dashboards
• One-pager updates with actual insight (no more “on track” for everything)

Automate where possible. Guess less, show more.

We need less power points for pre meetings and just status reporting based on an agreed upon information radiator.

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Step 8: Write a One-Page Charter (Yes, One Page)

Clarify who you are, what you do, and how people engage with you. Include:

• Purpose
• Scope
• Services
• Contact points

If you write more than a page, they won’t read it. You probably won’t either.

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Phase 3 (Days 31–50): Pilot, Adjust, Pretend It Was the Plan All Along

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Step 9: Pick a Few Brave Teams to Pilot

Choose:

• Teams with active projects
• A decent level of chaos
• Willingness to try something new (or zero say in the matter)

Test your intake-to-reporting loop. Let things break. Fix them fast.

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Step 10: Run the First Real Cycle

• Accept project requests
• Prioritize work
• Track delivery
• Share results

Don’t aim for perfection — aim for usable. You’re in MVP mode.

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Step 11: Quietly Improve Everything

Skip the “lessons learned” ceremony. Just:

• Shorten what’s too long
• Kill what’s unnecessary
• Fix what’s confusing

And don’t get cute. Now is not the time to rebrand everything as “Agile.” Read the article: Agile Isn’t Just for Software: How Business Teams Can Move Faster to see if Agile may fit your needs in the future. NOT now.

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Phase 4 (Days 51–60): Scale Without Creating a Monster

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Step 12: Lock in Your Cadence

Create consistency:

• Set calendar invites
• Confirm workflows
• Publish templates

Don’t add complexity just because someone asked nicely. Gatekeeping is underrated. Implement  “NaaS, No as a Service” if needed.

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Step 13: Build a Dashboard Worth Looking At

Keep it to 3–5 KPIs. No one’s reading beyond that.

• % of on-track initiatives
• Projects by priority
• Delivery velocity
• Risks/issues

Bonus: Include one metric that shows your PMO’s actual value. (Time saved, money avoided, fire prevented, etc.) This will be unique to your company.

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Step 14: Document the Bare Minimum

You need enough documentation to:

• Onboard new stakeholders
• Train replacements
• Sleep at night

Think: SOPs, templates, and a shared folder people can actually find. Again, don’t over engineer it.

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So... Now What?

You’ve got a functioning, visible, no-nonsense PMO. It’s:

• Lean
• Practical
• Not hated (yet)

From here:

• Tune quarterly
• Expand only if value is proven
• Protect it from the process goblins

And remember: a PMO is a service, not a shrine. If it stops solving problems, it becomes one.

You’ve got 60 days. Go.

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