PMO Reporting

Reporting is often viewed as a less-than-glamorous responsibility of the PMO. I think that reporting is probably one of the most visible methods that a PMO can show value. The PMO reports go to management and those managers and executives make decisions based on your reports. By providing accurate and timely information in those reports, you – the PMO – are ensuring that the foundations of corporate decision-making are solid and built on the best information available.

With that as your mission, there are several different types of reports that the PMO may be responsible for: department reporting, project reporting, portfolio reporting and PMO reporting. Let’s take a quick look:

Department reporting takes several different forms; one common form is resource management and projections. These focus of these reports is to give information on a department or group.

Project reporting is probably the most familiar, this can take the form of your red/green/yellow status reports, buffer reports (for those using CCM), or earned value. These reports give information on a project or projects.

Portfolio Reporting gives information about a collection of projects, some common reports are the pipeline report which shows where each project is as it moves thorough the project lifecycle. Other reports include a project priority list, resource and cost projections, and possible other more sophisticated sets of information. While project reports are more tactical in nature, portfolio reports are used more for strategic decision-making.

Lastly we have PMO reporting – This is simply reports that tell how the PMO is doing. Some examples are budget reports, balanced scorecards, staffing and others.

Each of these reports offers you a great opportunity to demonstrate your PMOs independence, neutrality, honesty and consistency. They are also a great marketing tool.