Why does no one want to be called a PMO anymore?
All over the world, PMOs are rebranding themselves: Strategic Delivery Office, Value Realization Office, EPMO, VDO. Some are ditching the label entirely.
And full disclosure: I’ve helped lead one of those transformations.
So when my LinkedIn buddy Trevor Nelson posted a sharp critique of the trend, I had to reach out.
I describe Trevor to friends as a “contrarian optimist”—skeptical but rarely cynical. He’s one of the voices exploring the unintended consequences of new (or cleverly recycled) thinking in project management.
Like me, he uses LinkedIn to think out loud—and to change his mind out loud, too. (Spoiler: He didn’t change his mind on this one. LOL). That’s why he was the perfect first guest for Big Dumb Questions.
Here’s what Trevor had to say:
PMOs are rushing to rebrand themselves. It seems like no one wants to be called a PMO anymore. Is this just semantics—or is something deeper going on?
Trevor: Both. Semantically, there’s this idea that all these terms are somehow “different” and discrete models—that a TMO is “different” from an SRO, or a PMO. Or that an EPMO is fundamentally different than a PMO. But a PMO can be structured any way you wish, or focus on whatever the org deems important, simply by providing services appropriate to that need.
The current trend treats these new terms as “evolutions” from a PMO—that to be valuable, you need to move beyond a PMO and become an SRO, TMO, EPMO, etc.
But this misses the most important point: this isn’t the decision of the PMO or the PMO leader. PMOs exist to solve a problem, and leadership determines what that problem is. So the solution isn’t to rebrand. It’s to find out what leadership needs and simply start providing that service.
So you’re concerned that a name change becomes a shortcut—like a “fresh start” that skips the hard work of actually finding out what leadership wants and delivering it?
Trevor: Right. And this is where so many PMOs go wrong, and what’s really driving much of this renaming. PMOs want to be seen as valuable, but they want to essentially “skip to the front of the line.” But while they’re asking for a bigger role, leadership is looking at them and saying, “But you haven’t even solved the problems you were created for.”
And I think this is the most important thing for PMO leaders to understand: the value of a PMO (or whatever name you use) is determined by leadership, NOT by the PMO or PMO leader. It doesn’t matter how valuable or important the PMO leader sees it. If leadership doesn’t see it, it’s not there.
This gets to a point you made to me over the phone—your observation that PMs and PMOs have an “inferiority complex.” Can you tell me more about that?
Trevor: Oh boy, I feel like I’ve been set up here. I can already feel the villagers gathering their pitchforks!
So let me see if I can explain this carefully. Number one, I don’t think all PMs or PMOs suffer from this. But I think much of what drives the current trends we see:
- Renaming PMOs
- Identifying PMOs as “strategic.”
- Claiming that the PMO is a “profit center.”
- Wanting a “seat at the table” where strategy is set
It’s all a desire for project management to be seen as important. But it’s a desire to be important in a way project management was never meant to be. It’s trying to position PMs as “strategy” or “value” experts, making us the star of the show—when in reality (at least for me), project management is really a support function.
What kind of support function?
Trevor: Project management is fundamentally about doing things more efficiently and more effectively, and having a greater chance of achieving goals than you would without project management.
And there’s nothing wrong with that. Every org in the world wants to do things more efficiently and effectively. But we don’t do the work. We support and enable those who do.
Is there a risk that, in defending the PMO label, we might also be defending some legacy assumptions that do need to change or be reframed, either within the org itself or generally?
Trevor: Yes. But I want to clarify here that the rename shouldn’t reflect a change in mindset, but a shift in function or services provided. And let me give you an example of why this matters.
Let’s assume we changed our PMO to a VMO because we’ve had a “shift in mindset” and now we “focus on value.” Leadership’s very first response will likely be “You mean you haven’t been focused on value before?”
Their follow-up may be, “Okay, then what exactly are you doing differently? And why weren’t you doing that before?”
Back to my earlier point: reframing (or rebranding) doesn’t solve anything. If all you’re doing is the same thing but with a different name, then you’re not “avoiding the stigma,” you’re just ruining the new name as well. A VMO that makes the same mistakes as the PMO only means that soon, no one will want a VMO either.
So let’s say a PMO really is changing the services it provides. What does that look like?
Trevor: Years ago, I worked in a large org that had two PMOs – Operations and IT. Leadership then made the decision to combine the two, and it was rebranded as the Enterprise PMO (EPMO). In this instance, it made sense because it indicated a shift or change in ‘purview’ and area of responsibility.
Rather than employees trying to figure out which PMO they needed to engage, there was now an ‘Enterprise’ PMO that was responsible for all projects. But the key aspect here is that the services or scope didn’t change because of the name—the name changed because of the services and scope.
At one of my clients, we renamed the PMO to “Value Delivery Office”—but not just for optics. We were moving from a traditional project mindset to more of a product mindset, with stable teams dedicated to a specific customer group and set of systems.
They still ran projects, but they also delivered smaller enhancements in a matter of days.
The name change was part of a broader shift we wanted to signal—like:
- Project → Product mindset
- Static → Dynamic prioritization
- Governance-heavy → Outcome-focused
- IT-led → Business/IT collaboration
To us, the rebrand supported the culture change.
Would you see that as a mindset shift—or a change in services?
Trevor: I wondered when you were going to get to, ‘but we did this’ 🙂
And this is one of those examples where I have no issue with renaming, for two reasons:
- While it may be easier to categorize it all as a “mindset,” as you pointed out, you actually changed how things were done. So if someone were to ask how the VDO was different from the PMO, you’d be able to point to very distinct differences.
Many times, when you ask someone what their VDO does that’s different than a PMO, there’s really no answer, other than something banal like “focus.”
- In an instance like this, the name change makes sense as it provides a symbolic “restart” and recognition of the new way. It’s not only a rebranding, but also one driven by substantive change.
As you mention, a lot of PMO leaders I talk to are under pressure to reposition themselves to stay relevant and get a seat at the table where decisions are made. If you’re in a culture where “PMO” is already a dirty word, what’s your first move? How do you rebuild credibility without relying on a rebrand as cover?
I think I would ask, “Pressure from whom?” In my experience, this is a self-inflicted pressure, i.e., the PMO leader thinks they need to do this. And here’s why. If this were being driven by leadership, then they would simply tell the PMO leader what they wanted. If they wanted them to be at the table, they’d invite them.
So, in terms of what a PMO leader should do, if the PMO leader wants to “be at the table,” then they have to earn it. Give leadership a reason to think you belong.
Not through names or proclamations about a new focus, or by adding “strategic” to the name—but by doing things that make leadership think, “Hey, they could probably help us here too.” So:
- Step 1: Solve the problem you were created for in the first place.
- Step 2: Find some other problems to solve.
- Step 3: Keep doing that until your value isn’t even a question.
You’ll never be the star of the show, but if you do that, no one will care what name you’re using. They’ll want you at the table.
Okay, last question: Why should this matter to the PM/PMO community? What’s at stake?
Trevor: In a word – survival.
PMOs are unique in that, while they can be a value-add, they are not a must-have. The value added is rarely directly attributable to the PMO. For example, if a project saves a company $10 million, it’s hard to say how much of that $10 million was due to good project management versus simply the outcome of the project itself.
In other words, without the PMO, the company may still have completed the project and saved some money. The PMO may have helped increase that savings—but how much we can’t know.
That’s even more difficult to quantify if the PMO isn’t directly involved in the delivery of projects. How is value attributed to oversight, governance, or coordination?
And so the value of a PMO is largely perception-based—determined by those who interact with the PMO. Do they think it provides value?
So here’s the pivotal point: For a PMO to really justify its existence, it has to provide perceived value that is so overwhelming that there’s no question anywhere in the org that the cost of the PMO was worth it.
And that requires understanding how the org views value—what they think is valuable, not what you, as the PMO, think is important or valuable.
Well said. The question isn’t “What should we call ourselves?” It’s: “What problem are we solving that leadership can’t solve without us?”
Call it a PMO, a VDO, or the Galactic Council of Strategic Alignment. If the work isn’t changing, neither will perception.