We have a small PMO — how do we spread capability across the business?

2026-04-10T20:08:10Z

George.ross5: Created page with "<html><p> I have spent 12 years inside UK organisations—from the rigid structures of the public sector to the high-compliance environments of regulated financial services—and I have seen the same pattern emerge repeatedly. A small, overworked PMO sits at the centre, functioning like an emergency service, rushing from one burning platform to the next. Meanwhile, the rest of the business—marketing, finance, operations—is full of "accidental project managers" trying..."

<html><p> I have spent 12 years inside UK organisations—from the rigid structures of the public sector to the high-compliance environments of regulated financial services—and I have seen the same pattern emerge repeatedly. A small, overworked PMO sits at the centre, functioning like an emergency service, rushing from one burning platform to the next. Meanwhile, the rest of the business—marketing, finance, operations—is full of "accidental project managers" trying to deliver change without the tools to do so.</p> <p> The common reaction? "We need to hire more project managers." But in the current UK market, where the project skills shortage is acute, hiring is expensive, slow, and often misses the point. You don’t need more PMs in the PMO; you need distributed project capability across the business. You need to turn your PMO from a delivery factory into a capability hub.</p> <h2> The PMO capacity limit: Why centralisation fails</h2> <p> If your PMO is the only place where "project management" happens, you have a bottleneck. You are effectively creating a service that can only scale at the speed of your headcount. When the demand for change exceeds your capacity, projects are either ignored or, worse, executed poorly by people who are essentially winging it.</p><p> <iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/sPMLVsRd3wU" width="560" height="315" style="border: none;" allowfullscreen="" ></iframe></p> <p> The "PMO capacity limit" isn't a problem of staff numbers; it’s a problem of organisational design. When we treat project management as a niche administrative function rather than a core organisational capability, we relegate it to the shadows. It becomes something that happens "to" the business rather than something the business "does."</p> <h2> Project management is not a 'soft skill'</h2> <p> Let me be clear: stop calling project management a soft skill. It is a technical discipline rooted in risk management, resource allocation, and governance. When non-project staff—the accountant running a system migration or the marketing lead launching a new brand—are left to manage projects without training, they don't just lack "soft skills." They lack the ability to quantify risk, define scope, and control rework. </p><p> <img src="https://images.pexels.com/photos/5324985/pexels-photo-5324985.jpeg?auto=compress&cs=tinysrgb&h=650&w=940" style="max-width:500px;height:auto;" ></img></p> <p> This is where the ROI argument often collapses. Organisations obsess over the cost of training, but they rarely calculate the cost of "accidental" delivery. If you aren’t measuring the cost of rework, missed deadlines, or the governance breaches that happen when a project goes unmanaged, you aren't really measuring your ROI at all.</p> <h2> Moving beyond the attendance certificate</h2> <p> Most L&D interventions in project management are, frankly, a waste of time. They offer an "attendance certificate" at the end of a two-day workshop, and three weeks later, everyone is back to using spreadsheets held together by hope. To build capability, you need an accredited pathway that provides a common language and a standard rigour.</p> <p> This is where frameworks like the APM (Association for Project Management) pathways become essential. They provide a structured, industry-recognised benchmark that gives your "accidental" managers the confidence to say "no" to scope creep and "yes" to better risk identification.</p> <h3> Recommended Qualification Pathways</h3> <p> When I roll out capability programmes, I look at the career stage and the complexity of the projects the individual is likely to handle. Here is the framework I use:</p><p> <img src="https://images.pexels.com/photos/33810496/pexels-photo-33810496.jpeg?auto=compress&cs=tinysrgb&h=650&w=940" style="max-width:500px;height:auto;" ></img></p> Target Audience Recommended Qualification Primary Outcome Team members, junior leads, or those new to delivery. <strong> APM Project Fundamentals Qualification (PFQ)</strong> Understanding the lifecycle, terminology, and key roles in a project. Functional leads, operational managers, and career project managers. <strong> APM Project Management Qualification (PMQ)</strong> Practical application of tools, complex stakeholder management, and budget control. <h2> How to build a distributed delivery culture</h2> <p> If you want to move away from being the "delivery police" and towards being a "centre of excellence," you must change how you engage with the wider business. Here is how to start:</p> <h3> 1. Identify the 'Accidental PMs'</h3> <p> Look at your recent project register. Who is actually running the work? It’s rarely the person with "Project Manager" in their job title. It’s the Head of Marketing, the IT Operations lead, the Finance Controller. These are your champions. Target them for the PMQ training.</p> <h3> 2. Standardise the Language</h3> <p> The biggest cause of project failure is the lack of a shared dictionary. Does "at risk" mean the same thing to a developer as it does to a finance director? By using APM standards, you ensure that when a project is reported as "amber," the entire organisation understands exactly what that means in terms of governance and intervention requirements.</p> <h3> 3. Create a 'Governance Lite' Model</h3> <p> Not every project needs the full weight of a massive, bureaucratic PMO framework. Create a tiered model. If an "accidental PM" is running a small, low-risk project, give them a simple, templated pathway. If it’s high-risk https://www.thehrdirector.com/features/training/project-management-training-deserves-seat-ld-table/ or cross-functional, that’s when your core PMO steps in to provide the heavy governance. Don't punish simplicity with complexity.</p> <h2> The 90-day measurement test</h2> <p> Whenever I roll out a new training pathway, I ask the leadership team one question: "How will we measure this in 90 days?"</p> <p> If the answer is "everyone will feel more confident," we have failed. Confidence is not a metric. You should be looking for:</p> <ul> <li> <strong> Reduced Rework:</strong> Are we seeing fewer "emergency" changes to project plans mid-cycle?</li> <li> <strong> Risk Transparency:</strong> Is the quality of the risk register improving? Can the project lead actually articulate the impact of a risk?</li> <li> <strong> Governance Adherence:</strong> Are people proactively flagging deviations from the plan, or are they hiding them until they become crises?</li> </ul> <h2> Final thoughts: The PMO's new role</h2> <p> Your PMO shouldn't be the group that does the work. It should be the group that ensures the rest of the business *can* do the work. By upskilling your functional leads through the APM PFQ and PMQ pathways, you are building an organisation that is resilient to the UK skills shortage and capable of delivering value consistently. </p> <p> Stop hiring more project managers to fix a broken system. Start teaching the business how to manage its own projects. It’s harder, it takes longer, and it requires real L&D investment—but it’s the only way to actually scale.</p></html>

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We have a small PMO — how do we spread capability across the business?