As according to the AtekPC Project Management Office case, the purpose1 of a PMO is to fulfill the need for greater discipline in managing IT projects. Moreover, it establishes or enhances project management skills, process, and governance structures within an organization (Applegate Pg. 462). The director of Application Development, Richard Steinberg, described AtekPC’s PMO’s purpose as a “methodology” for managing projects with standardized practices. As stated within the case, the main purpose of the PMO is to provide standardization in managing projects of large, complex scales as well as gain improvements in planning and performance of initiatives (Applegate Pg. 465). The case generalizes the purpose of the PMO as the realization of the benefits derived from consistent project practices. With certain recurring elements, I conclude that the purpose of a PMO (from the context of the AtekPC case) is to improve the efficient use of management skills, processes, and authority architecture with complex projects by standardizing decision making, with respect to the company’s core competencies.
The mission2 of a PMO is more specific than its purpose. In this case, there are multiple missions assigned to the PMO of AtekPC, though they are not finalized. The first mission, which is a short term goal, is cost reduction (Applegate Pg. 466), where the PMO uses IT to play the support role as well as the factory role(Applegate Pg. 430-431), since projects at AtekPC have increasingly become more focused on operations and maintenance in an overriding effort to improve efficiencies within the business function (Applegate PG. 466). The second mission, in a more long term outlook, is to become more creative, adaptive, and agile in launching new products, which indicates a strategic role of IT usage (Applegate Pg. 466). This means there is an intense emphasis on the PMO sustaining strategic core operations through becoming more