Project management offices: A case of knowledge-based archetypes

While Project Management Offices (PMOs) have become a mainstay in organizations, systematic research has not yet been undertaken to study their intricacies. In this paper, we conduct an exploratory and descriptive case study of PMOs, based on our interviews with senior managers and directors of PMOs in 32 IT organizations. The objectives are to: (1) outline the nature and characteristics of PMOs; (2) classify and derive archetypes of PMOs; and (3) enumerate critical success factors of PMOs. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper to systematically investigate PMOs from a knowledge archetype perspective. A novel and significant contribution of this paper is the case description of four PMO archetypes, which clearly delineate PMOs based on their knowledge management functions and capabilities.