One of the hardest things as a PMO is to get the business to believe in you and buy into the service you’re offering. Over the years I’ve seen a number of great PMOs fail to deliver on their promise simply because they haven’t promoted themselves properly.
Hi, I’m Andrew at Psoda, and in this video I’m going to talk you through how to promote your PMO, whether you’re in the process of setting up a new one from scratch or just looking to promote your existing one.
Make marketing your PMO a project. This will help you get the resources and support to make it happen.
It might sound odd but the promotion of your PMO is a marketing campaign, so you need to think of it as such. Consider different activities for different stages, such as:
a. Pre-launch
b. Launch
c. Post-launch
Look at the different channels available to you to promote the PMO - e.g. internal newsletters, intranet pages, email communications, Twitter, company internal messaging platforms etc. Leverage them as much as you can.
You don’t need to write heaps of content, you can write something once and then tweak and pull out snippets for other channels. You can write a really comprehensive blog post about what your PMO is doing. Instead of writing an article for a newsletter, pull a paragraph out and add a link to the blog. If you have a company messaging platform take the blog headline and post it along with a link.
On saying that, you do need to segment your potential audience and develop targeted messages for each group. For example, the messages you use to promote the PMO to senior managers are going to be very diff erent to those used to promote it to the project managers.
Another great way to promote the PMO is to try and get key “promoters” within the different audiences who you can use to disseminate your messages to a wider group of people. Influencers can make a huge difference to your success, or not, as the case may be.
One of the most powerful things you can do is have a tangible product to offer from day one. It could be a new process, template or document, but make it something which will add significant, real value to the business. E.g. a new report template that will reduce the amount of time project managers need to spend on reporting and will give the senior leadership team the information they need in a quickly understood format. If you use Psoda, you can create a report template quickly using the report wizard or it can be developed specifically for you by the Psoda team. People like “quick wins” and if you can show something that works straight away, it will hugely increase your chances of success.
If you can, have some kind of launch event. If you will be supporting people on different sites, try and have an event at each location. Not only will it help people "put faces to names”, but the fact that you were willing to travel to them will build real goodwill from those you visit. Everyone loves free stuff, so if you can, hand out something like cupcakes. I’d also aim to have physical copies of your process, template or document on hand. People will be more willing to take it away and use it if they can physically hold it.
Don’t forget to keep up the promotional work post launch. It’s very easy to rest on your laurels, but something like a PMO needs constant promotion. It could be something as simple as a monthly update on the company intranet. Or it could be more elaborate like a quarterly roadshow to various locations.
Every time you launch a new process, tool, template or document make sure you promote it. It doesn’t need to be a full on launch after the 1st one but something that makes you stand out will always help you succeed.
One final thing, always be open to feedback. Even if it’s negative. People that tell you stuff are engaged with what you’re doing so it’s in your best interests to respond quickly and politely. You’ll be surprised at how often something as simple as a phone call can turn a detractor into a promoter.
I hope these suggestions are useful, feel free to put yours in the comments section below, and be sure to tune in to our future videos!
If you want to see how Psoda can benefit your PMO, schedule a FREE personalised demo with CEO Bruce Aylward: www.psoda.com
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