The concept of a `strategic project office' is one that not many are familiar with. While project offices exist in many organizations today, they are typically confined to a single business unit and rarely have a strategic role. This article discusses the role of the strategic project office and the criteria required for a project office to be considered truly `strategic'.

When first confronted with the term `strategic project office', many of us start with the question: What is that, really? What qualifies a project office as `strategic'? Is this simply a label designed to satisfy someone's ego? Is it a way of describing a project management office in an environment where the acronym `PMO' is a dirty word? Or is it in fact a different beastone that provides discrete and distinct value to the organization?

To comprehend this concept, it helps first to understand the role that the project office normally plays in an organizational context. For most organizations, the project office oversees, or is responsible for a subset of projects that the organization takes on. Often, these will be the projects of a specific business unitwhether that is a support unit like Information Technology or a profit center like Product Development.

most project offices only provide a limited set of functions that do not fully encompass the work of defining, prioritizing and managing the projects for which they are responsible. Depending on the structure and approach of the project office, this may be simple tracking and reporting of project progress. It may be active identification of project opportunities, and analysis and definition of the project to the point of project approval and assignment to a project manager. Or it may be the concrete delivery of the project throughout the project lifecycle.

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