William Dow - The PMO Lifecycle: Building, Running, and Shutting Down

Copyright @ 2017 William Dow, PMP

Dow Publishing LLC

1210 N 42nd Place

Renton, WA 98056

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ISBN 978-0-9858695-4-0

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When I thought about dedicating this book, I wanted to focus on one person this time: my wife, Kathleen Dow. It has been a rough year with some medical issues for us, and so I want to take this time and say Kath, without you, I would not be who I am today. You are my rock, my support mechanism, my life. You are everything to me. I want to thank you for being you, and I could not have done it without you!

I also want to thank my mother and my brothers and sister and of course my son William Dow. Billy, I am so proud of you and you mean everything to me.

William Dow, PMP, is a recognized expert in project management by the Project Management Institute (PMI) for developing and managing project management offices (PMOs.) His extensive experience with project management and PMOs has enabled him to co-author several comprehensive books (available from Amazon.com).

Bill has taught at the college level for more than 15 years in Washington State, as well as in British Columbia and Ontario, Canada. He has worked at Microsoft for more than 10 years. He has spoken at multiple PMI conferences, breakfasts, and events nationally. ProjectManagement.com(http://www.projectmanagement.com) and PMtimes (http://www.projecttimes.com) host numerous articles by Bill.

As a PMP and subject matter expert, Bill is available to author white papers, articles, and blog posts on specific topics relating to trends in project management. He is also poised to deliver training, however basic or complex, in project-management methods.

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The PMO Lifecycle: Building, Running, and Shutting Down (2017)

Project Management Communication Tools, co-authored with Bruce Taylor (2015)

The Tactical Guide for Building a PMO (2012)

Project Management Communications Bible, co-authored with Bruce Taylor (2008)

Courses by William Dow, PMP

The PMO Lifecycle: Building, Running and Shutting Down Online Course

Top Communication Tools Mini Course

How to Build, Run and Shutdown a PMO - Mini Course

Details found here: https://www.dowpublishingllc.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/billdow

Website: http://www.dowpublishingllc.com and http://www.billdowpmp.com

Foreword: James Brown

Cover design: Elysia Chu

Editor: Kate Shoup

Chapter 2 PMO history: Bruce Taylor

Chapter 6, The Lean-Agile PMO: Jonathan Ward

Contributor, project-management business intelligence: Michael Hopmere

Contributor, Chapter 7, PMO Maturity Models (including The Balanced PMO): Al Callan, PMP

Chapter 10, Portfolio-Management Methodology: Yorai Linenberg

Contributor, Chapter 11, Program-Management Methodology: Mark Bestauros

Chapter 20, PMO change agents/models: Diana Lilla, M.A., PMP

If you are still struggling and want some additional help, check out the online course. Click on the image below to go right to the course.

I remember the first time I met Bill Dow. We were both attending a PMI Congress. He asked if he could share my table at breakfast. We quickly struck up a conversation about PMOsthe challenges many face when starting a PMO, and how to ensure delivery of the PMOs value and benefits once its up and running.

As the director of a PMO that won the 2009 PMO of the Year Award and someone who has built or managed PMOs for more than 20 years, I was attending PMI Congress as a speaker and as a guest of several vendors I had used over the years. As Bill described his current assignment, I was keenly interested in how his PMO handled project management compared to my current and previous experiences. It was very apparent during our brief discussion that many people in the profession run into similar issues surrounding PMOs.

Upon my return home from the PMI event, I immediately began reading Bills first book, The Project Management Communication Bible. It echoed the discussions we had. I could see that he truly understood that a major failure of many project managers is communication. I can no longer keep count of the times I have been asked to study an organization to determine the root cause of a PMO failure only to find it tied in some way to communication.

Over time, Bill and I kept in touch. He graciously provided me a copy of his next book, The Tactical Guide for Building a PMO, targeted at those attempting to build or improve a PMO. It was filled with common-sense information that is unfortunately not so common. To be more accurate, it identified a path and a series of processes that increase the PMOs chances of success. (Most folks do not want to take the time to perform these processesand then wonder why their PMO is not effective.) Bills views on the importance of focusing on the problem your PMO is trying to solve rather than process creation for the sake of having processes is very good advice.

When Bill asked me to write the foreword for his new book, PMO Lifecycle: Building, Running, and Shutting Down