Control of project data and team satisfaction as results of PMO effort in new product development projects

Abstract

PurposeThis paper aims to explore how new product development (NPD)-based project management offices (PMOs) work, their drivers to deliver performance and their project success impact.Design/methodology/approachThe study used a survey of 35 Brazilian and multi-national companies that identified the effort to perform a list of PMO functions, some PMO drivers in the company and five project performance perception indicators. The authors apply a specific set of statistics to uncover the relations between these dimensions of interest.FindingsThe factorial analysis allows us to find the main functions influencing each other. The project teams’ perception of project management (PM) performance is suggested as a success factor that drives PMOs when working on portfolio management issues, managing project files and promoting PM over the company.Practical implicationsThis paper contributes to a contingency approach for designing a project machine involving PMOs to support NPD projects. Managers can set the most suitable PMO functions avoiding mimicry when structuring their NPD efforts.Originality/valuePMOs have impacted team satisfaction and control of project data but not indicators related to triple constraints.