Project Management Office Problems

Prepare Executive Summary

When the problems list is complete, the executive summary for the business case is prepared. The executive summary lists the most important problems the PMO will address. It is formatted as a paragraph or two followed by a bulleted list of critical problems identified, as in this example:

"At the request of the CEO, a review of problems causing project failure and significant project delays and cost overruns was conducted. It was determined that the costs of poor project management practices exceed $10 million per year. The most critical problems were:

• Project scope (the definition of project goals) being poorly defined. This led to project failure in 20% of all projects, and to delays or cost overruns exceeding 200% of allocated time and budget on another 20% of projects.
• The lack of  a standardized risk system affects all projects, sometimes causing project failure or schedule and budget excesses of over 150%
• Poor contract management has led to errors where the company paid vendors for inadequate services and even, at times, for services that were never provided. An excess of $1 million has been paid to vendors inappropriately over the last five years.

In addition, seven other less significant problems were identified.

This report proposes the creation of a Project Management Office (PMO) tasked with solving these problems. The role of the project management office will be to solve these problems, starting with the most severe ones, and to put permanent solutions in place so that these problems, and other problems that may be discovered later, will not recur."

The executive summary should close with a recommendation to create the PMO and a statement of the role of the PMO.