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What would be the best group of metrics to use to measure PMO value in services organization? What do you use in your org,if any? By this I am talking about more of the soft metrics like repeat customers, showing how a defined process helped the sale of a service, etc.?

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The first metric is at least 10 times more important than any of the others.

  1. Does it fulfill the company's strategic mission? If the company doesn't know why it created a PMO, then the PMO should be shut down. Someone else will quote the precise number but if I recall correctly 90% of PMO's fail in 3 years, largely because they serve no strategic objective. *Update: This observation is informed by Mark Perry of BOT International. His podcasts emphasize this point. I regret not attributing it to him; took me a bit of digging to find the right citation.

  2. Rate of project closure. What % of projects are closed successfully by the PMO (Close can include "killed off before it becomes a zombie project")

  3. % of effort devoted to project deliverables vs effort devoted to project documentation. (In theory those who work with the PMO will spend more time on the project deliverable and less time on paper churning.)
  4. Quality of project documentation - is the project documentation consistent across projects? does it meet quality standards? (difficult to measure in a non-PMO environment. Perhaps use the number of revisions as a proxy).
  5. Total value of successful projects delivered that align with enterprise strategic goals.
  6. Portfolio metrics - randomly this was published the same week the question was asked; I felt compelled to include it for reference.
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    This is extremely interesting and has helped crystallize my own thoughts on PMOs. I had not heard factoid 1., but I can believe it. Too many PMOs adopt the HR model of deploying process that only they can police, thereby becoming self-supporting, but which do not serve the key requirements of the actual deliveries. In my not-so-humble opinion of course :)
    – Marv Mills
    Dec 8, 2015 at 10:29
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    Observation #1 is based on Mark Perry's podcast on PMO's. He is... vehement... about this point.
    – MCW
    Dec 8, 2015 at 12:14
  • I believe all of these points are important. One thing I should have clarified, however, is that this PMO is for a services team (managbes customer facing projects) so in terms of "strategic importance" I believe it is there. My ultimate goal is to show - beyond the fundamental benefits of a well executed project - what other value add does a PMO lend to an organization's ability to sell their services. Crtedibility or perception of maturity? etc. Thanks for your response!
    – geoffmpm
    Dec 11, 2015 at 16:39
  • I'm not sure how I perceive credibility - I can't measure credibility, and any metric for perception that I contemplate is too subjective to value the measurement. "Maturity" only works if you have a maturity model, and I'm not aware of a maturity model for PMO. The only things that I'd measure for those two fall into "quality" - does the PMO produce standards and guidance that facilitate project closure across the organization? Are the standards used? Are they useful?
    – MCW
    Dec 11, 2015 at 17:33

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