Michael Cooch
Educated in New Zealand, Michael achieved an Honours Degree in Manufacturing and Industrial Technology. Since then he has gone on to achieve Project Management Professional (PMP), PRINCE2 Practitioner and a Diploma in Business Analysis (ISEB).
He has worked at the leading edge of the programme/ portfolio/ project control industry for 9 years and has experience working with Accenture, Unilever, London Stock Exchange, NHS, Morgan Stanley, Orange, TYCO and the Office of Rail Regulation.
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Once you have calculated your FTE Equivalent for each functional area you will have a total estimated headcount for your
PMO.
There are a few important points to note before you head off and use these numbers in anger! ...namely;
- The mathematical model that supports this article has been derived from twenty-two best practice engagements (a new version will come out in 2008);
- You should remember to uplift/decrease your estimate based on the additional variables we discussed earlier;
- If your actual headcount is significantly lower than the estimate, common reasons are that your people are working a lot of uncharged overtime (remember an FTE is a Full Time Equivalent based off a standard working day - usually about 8 hours a day), you have strong support from senior management (and clear authority), you have strong automation of processes and tools or you have a very experienced and skilled workforce; and
- If your actual headcount is significantly higher than the estimate common reasons are that your team isn't working as efficiently as it could on direct PMO value-added activity or is doing work that isn't strictly PMO activity, you have an unskilled team, you have little support from senior management (or limited authority) or your level of automation is much lower than you think.
Whilst this isn't an exact science it should give you a good indicator of how big your PMO should be and some of the factors that contribute to it's size.
