Background
A large municipal utility provider serving nearly 2 million residents was completing a large, complex, and high-profile system implementation that had stressed its Project Management and Change Management capabilities. While a Project Management Office (PMO) was in place, it faced significant challenges with stakeholder confidence, process control, and delivery capability.
At a Glance
What Mattered Most
Establish a strategic IT PMO to unify delivery, strengthen operations, and align IT with business and executive leadership through practical governance and project discipline.
What We Noticed
Multiple departments (and even individual IT units) approached delivery through their own lens. Without a shared framework, intake was fragmented, priorities were reactive, and execution suffered.
What Changed
frameworks adopted:
IT Project Delivery and
Risk Management
to a single org-wide unit
with key leaders from
business units and IT
validated & inventoried
and adopted by
15 PMO staff
hours saved
meeting duration
(90 to 30 minutes)
status meetings
(weekly to bi-weekly)
and reports deployed
Challenge
The organization faced significant challenges in delivering IT projects. Weekly leadership meetings, which averaged 90 minutes, were ineffective. Project prioritization was reactive, and reporting was inconsistent. Project requests were received verbally or via email. Business Units held separate IT Councils to discuss and approve projects, while multiple IT functions used different frameworks to plan, design, and deliver solutions. This led to confusion, inefficiency, lack of ownership, and delays.
When the IT Council meets, I don't have the information
I need to make decisions. Neither do my peers.
Previous attempts to establish a strategic PMO had failed, and project managers were seen as administrative rather than strategic contributors. Several high-profile programs and system upgrades were on the horizon as well as an initiative to modernize the legacy IT infrastructure. The PMO needed a transformation in mindset, governance, standardization and tools.
Solution
We partnered with the IT Chief Governance Officer, PMO Lead, and CIO to launch a full-scale transformation that would establish and operationalize a capable and trusted IT PMO:
- Developed a PMO vision, roadmap, and governance model in partnership with executive leadership
- Identified, evaluated, and inventoried over 120 projects and pending requests
- Developed RFP for project & portfolio management tools, and managed the vendor implementation
- Standardized the project lifecycle, synergizing 9 IT units, and 3 business divisions under a unified framework
- Implemented a centralized intake process
- Re-engineered and streamlined the multiple IT Councils into a single unit
- Launched a PMIS (Project Management Information System), migrating 70+ workplans and enabling real-time portfolio visibility.
- Drove Adoption and Change Management across the organization via communications, workshops, training, and participation in department staff meetings
- Trained and coached over 25 project staff, embedding best practices in artifact usage, scheduling, risk management, and stakeholder engagement.
- Adopted a weekly “status update rhythm”, ensuring all intake requests, projects, and risks were up to date and met quality control standards
Outcome
What began as a fragmented, reactive IT environment evolved into a strategic, data-driven delivery engine. The PMO became a trusted partner to leadership, enabling faster decisions, better resource allocation, and improved project outcomes.
- Enterprise-wide alignment and governance replaced siloed decision-making
- Standardized tools and processes improved auditability and reduced duplication
- Centralized intake and resource forecasting enabled proactive planning and execution
- 300% reduction in weekly status meeting time, saving over 2,000 leadership hours annually
- Transitioned from weekly to bi-weekly status reporting to the CIO and business unit leaders
- Increased confidence in the new PMO across IT, stakeholders and Senior Leadership
- PMO maturity advanced from Level 1 to Level 2 in just 9 months, with a roadmap to Level 3 defined
Conclusion
This engagement was a transformation that restored confidence in IT delivery, empowered project managers, and aligned the entire organization around a shared vision of execution excellence.
