Director of international projects in information technology for twenty years, Rachid Baida began his career as a computer scientist. He is currently the founding president of a management consulting firm “Xpergis Consulting Canada”.
In September 2023, he will defend his Executive Doctorate of Business Administration (EDBA), on the theme “The project office (PMO) according to the project development approach” under the direction of Alejandro Romero-Torres, Professor at ESG UQAM.
Thesis Direction
Pr Alejandro Romero-Torres
Thesis Title
The project management office (PMO) according to the project development approach
Abstract
Since its emergence, the Project Management Office (PMO) has been studied by several project management researchers. It is defined as an organizational unit that provides roles and functions for the success of projects.
In our experience as a consultant, we have found that several types of PMOs can coexist in an organization to support projects managed using different approaches (waterfall, agile and hybrid approaches). In addition, the failure rate of projects is still considerable (confirmed by our readings). Therefore, we identified a gap to be developed by formulating the following question: How does alignment between PMO functions and project development approaches impact project success?
This document is an in-depth study of the impact of different project management approaches on the typology of PMOs. Based on structural contingency theory, we adopted the quantitative method (positivist paradigm, deductive design) through an online questionnaire for project management professionals. Data collection is conducted at the level of North American organizations managing information technology projects. The results obtained (out of 78 participants, 62 PMOs) are analyzed by the Dataviv tool and show that most organizations opt for a single PMO that supports all projects, a majority of which adopt the hybrid approach. However, the typology of PMOs by project management approach is found to be non-existent following hypothesis testing and testing of non-significant relationships between: (1) project management approaches, (2) evaluated PMO functions and (3) existing PMO functions.
This thesis begins with a general introduction, then the first chapter which addresses the context with a summary on repositories that describe the key concepts, followed by the identification of the problem. The second chapter is devoted to the literature review on PMOs, and concludes with a synthesis on the cohabitation of projects and PMOs. The third and fourth chapters are dedicated, respectively, to the methodology followed and the results obtained. The fifth chapter provides an analysis of the results before closing the thesis with a general conclusion, summarizing the context of the study and its main contributions.
This research will help executives/managers and PMO managers to fully understand the link between PMOs and project development approaches and, as a result, to adopt a better PMO service structure that adapts to needs and ensures project success.