Project Office

Project office plays a vital role in overall project management by providing the management and organisational structure. Establishing an effective organisational structure for the project is crucial to its success. Every project has need for direction, management, control and communication. Project office structure consists of roles and responsibilities that bring together the various interests and skills involved in, and required by, the project. For the project to be successful, it is important to define these roles at the outset. The structure assumes that there will be a customer who will specify the desired outcome, make use of the outcome and probably pay for the project and a supplier who will provide the resources and skills to create that outcome. This assumption has a bearing on how the project is organised.

Project office provides a structure for a project management team that supports:

1. Roles for decision makers

2. Management by exception for the decision makers

3. Full or part-time project management

4. Controlled delegation of some day-to-day management responsibilities, where required, to team managers

5. Roles for the independent inspection of all aspects of project performance

6. Administrative support, as required, to the project manager and team managers

7. Agreement by all concerned on what the various roles and responsibilities are

8. Lines of communication between the project management team members.

A project office structure is a temporary structure specifically designed to manage the project to its successful conclusion to meet the requirements defined in the project business case. The structure allows for channels of communication to decision-making forums and should be backed up by job descriptions that specify the responsibilities, goals, limits of authority, relationships, skills, knowledge and experience required for all roles in the project organisation. The project management structure must be removed at the end of the project and responsibility hand over to operational support.

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