Dwaraka Iyengar

Iyengar_DwarakaPaper (43): The Changing Face of the PMO

Abstract: Project Management Office (PMO) has been around for more than three decades and in those thirty plus years the PMO (especially IT-PMO and in some case Enterprise PMO) has at times struggled to provide its value to organizations. With the advent of newer methodologies in the IT world, especially, AGILE and Scrum Methodologies, the PMOs are yet again finding hard to keep their feet in the ground in terms of providing value to organizations. In all these years, PMOs have been constantly adjusting to the demands of the organizations , however, primarily focusing on the basic value of the PMO which is being gatekeepers of standards for projects, mentoring project managers and coming to the rescue of troubled projects. Faced with the challenges of providing agility, the PMO is now also tasked with providing value to business owners and reduce the gap in the value perception of the business owner and the project manager. This presentation will briefly go through the significant events of the past decades of the PMO and then present those areas where the PMO will make significant contribution going forward, namely, in the areas of demand and capacity management. In the process of doing so, we will walk through a case study of demand and capacity management that was implemented by the PMO in one of the organizations.

Biography: Having over 35 years of experience in providing business solutions to corporations in competencies such as communications, negotiations, leadership, team building, procurement, mergers & acquisitions, outsourcing and offshoring, Dwaraka Iyenga provides management and leadership training  to small to medium sized businesses. He also helps entrepreneurs in taking their slice of the American pie by providing the necessary roadmap for selling a business or buying a business or a franchise.

Mr. Iyenga has a successful record in managing high-profile, mission-critical functional departments and programs. He excels at building and leading top-performing global teams, at formulating business  solutions to meet changing needs, and at facilitating revenue growth.

Mr. Iyenga has managed complete project & program life cycles in areas as diverse as telecom, networking, finance/insurance, defense, legal, publishing, and product and software development. He has also supervised teams in the Philippines, Israel, India, and Sri Lanka.  He oversaw the establishment of a new technical communications business unit for an $80M provider of content supply, chain consulting, technical documentation, eLearning, and knowledge process outsourcing services.

Mr. Iyenga served as president of the Dallas Chapter of the Project Management Institute and also serve as the Vice President of the Education Committee at the Chapter. In the most recent past, Dwaraka has led the Governance and Strategic Planning committees at the regional level for PMI.

Mr. Iyenga has made several presentations on Project Methodologies, Demand and Capacity Management, Managing in a Virtual Environment at PMI, University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) and other professional forums.  As a member of the Collin College Continuing Education adjunct faculty for over 15 years, he designed and delivered Project Management training programs and PMP Certification Preparation courses.  Dwaraka has also developed and delivered custom built Risk Management and Effective Team Leadership workshops for Fortune 500 companies and also medium sized businesses.