What is P3O?

Project, Programme and Portfolio Office (P3O) is the latest guidance from OGC.

A P3O model provides a decision enabling/delivery support structure for all change within an organisation. This may be provided through a single permanent office which may exist under several different names e.g., Portfolio Office, Centre of Excellence, Enterprise or Corporate Programme Office. It may otherwise be provided through a linked set of offices (portfolio office, programme offices, project offices), both permanent (enabling / supporting business objectives and consistency of delivery) and temporary (enabling / supporting specific programmes and projects), providing a mix of central and localised services.

OGC's PRINCE2™, Managing Successful Programmes, and Management of Risk all touch on the need to provide adequate support structures for these best practices. However, currently there is no single source of this information that either organisations or individuals can go to find guidance or advice on setting up or running an effective delivery support office in alignment with OGC's Best Practice guidance. 

This new guidance - aligned to OGC's PRINCE2™, MSP, and MoR - will bring together in one place a set of principles, processes and techniques to facilitate effective portfolio, programme and project management through enablement, challenge and support structures. These structures also bridge the gap between the strategy / policy makers and the delivery arm of the organisation.

The purpose of the Portfolio, Programme and Project Office (P3O) guidance is to provide universally applicable guidance that will enable individuals and organisations to successfully establish, develop and maintain appropriate business support structures that will allow:

• Informed senior management decision making on strategic alignment, prioritisation, risk management, optimisation of resource etc to successfully deliver their business objectives (portfolio management)
• Identification abd realisation of business outcomes and benefits via programmes
• Successful delivery of project outputs that enable benefits within time, cost and quality restraints

The guidance will provide:

• An Introduction to P3Os - Discussing why, when and how to use P3O models including the difference between portfolio, programmes and project environments and their different requirements. 
• Value - What value P3Os can bring to the organisation including a business case, funding models and performance measures
• Model - An overview of the different P3O models with examples, Functions and Techniques - Details on the functions / services and techniques / tools used by units of a P3O model. 

The Foundation P3O Qualification:

There is a Foundation qualification based on an objective test exam along the same lines as the other OGC qualifications. The exam focuses on concepts, structures and duties of a P3O and is aimed at anyone who works with or in a P3O. The exam consists of 50 multiple choice questions to be answered in 40 minutes. It is a closed-book examination and has a pass mark of 60%.

The Practitioner P3O Qualification:

The Practitioner exam was launched in January 2010, it is an objective testing style paper. The paper consists of 7 questions with a total of 70 marks available to be completed within 2 1/4 hours. Candidates need to achieve a mark of 35 or more to pass the paper, and may only take the P3O Guide into the exam room for reference during the exam. A pre-requisite for this exam is a pass at Foundation level.