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Interviewing candidates for a PMO position is different than hiring for a project manager position. The fundamental skill sets are similar, but the leadership skills and technical competencies are influenced by the form and function performed by the PMO. The PMO may exist at a program, department or enterprise level, and the project managers working with the PMO may have a strong or weak matrix relationship with the PMO manager. The following interview questions are just a few that can be used to staff PMOs at various levels in an organization. They should be tailored according to the specific PMO’s form and function. Question 1: Portfolio Management and Governance Describe how you’ve implemented portfolio management across an organization. What tools have you used to manage the portfolio? A key function within a program, department or enterprise PMO is the governance and management of the projects in the portfolio. An effective PMO assists in the decision-making process to identify, select and monitor the projects executing in the portfolio. Candidates should demonstrate previous experiences organizing portfolio reviews and supporting portfolio decision making. Candidates that have experience with project portfolio management tools like Clarity, Microsoft’s Project Portfolio Server or IBM’s Rational Portfolio Manager are an asset to the team. Question 2: Schedule Management Describe a recent experience integrating different schedules across related projects or programs. What is your approach to manage and track key milestones and deliverables across a program? In a program level PMO, the related projects are integrated across milestones and the PMO assists the program manager in identifying late or at-risk milestones. The questions also help identify a PMO member’s approach to gather the information, integrate and report on the program or portfolio’s performance. Question 3: Resource and Demand Management How do you manage new project requests and determine the organization’s resource capacity? Another key function that PMOs provide is resource management. At a department level, the PMO needs to manage the project initiation and resource utilization within the portfolio. PMO managers need to demonstrate the ability to manage the resource allocation and utilization within the portfolio in order to balance the demand for new work entering the pipeline. Question 4: Quality and Tollgate Management Describe a previous experience where you were responsible for process quality assurance. How do you ensure projects within the portfolio are following tollgates and obtain the necessary approvals to proceed? In IT implementations, process quality assurance is implemented to ensure project teams are following the methodology and producing the required deliverables. By following consistent processes, consistent deliverables and ultimately consistent results can be expected. Candidates should cite experiences working with project teams to implement a methodology and ensure process steps are executed correctly. As projects are executed across the portfolio, the PMO also needs to manage the various project tollgates and ensure all the stakeholders agree with the current progression of the project. Successful candidates can provide experiences where they were responsible for communicating the key issues, risks and open-action items as projects progressed through the phase tollgates. Question 5: Financial Management Describe your experiences managing financial budgets. What was the scope and processes used to manage program or portfolio forecasts? The financial management function may reside within the PMO or it may reside within a strategic planner function. If it resides in the PMO, these questions will help determine if the PMO candidate has previous experiences managing financial forecasts, tracking actual costs throughout a portfolio and monitoring the portfolio’s budget. Question 6: Change Management Describe your experiences implementing a change control board across a program or portfolio. Understanding the change management processes in the PMBOK and applying a change management control board across a portfolio or program is an exercise in translating theory into practice. Scope and cost management are critical skills needed to effectively manage a program or portfolio. Effective candidates should demonstrate past experiences applying change management procedures and discuss some of the challenges found managing a change control board. Change control is critical when managing outsourced contracts with different vendors as well as managing scope within an internal program. Question 7: Mentoring and Training Describe an experience where you were responsible for coaching or training others on project management techniques. Effective PMOs not only promote the project management practices within the organization but are able to coach, mentor and develop the project managers’ skill sets. Effective PMOs are staffed with resources that can deliver projects and successfully share their knowledge with junior project managers. Organizations have different levels of project management capability and PMOs help improve the capability by promoting and sharing project management best practices. Successful candidates should be able to cite past experiences sharing lessons learned, providing best practices or imparting methodology knowledge to other project managers. These seven questions can be further augmented with the questions provided in the previous two articles that assess candidates’ technical- and leadership-based project management competencies. Please refer to the attached PMO interview guide and tailor it to your organization’s needs. For more information on the form and function of PMO, please read The PMO: Form and Function
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