FEATURED PAPER
By Pascal Bohulu Mabelo
Johannesburg, South Africa
Abstract
There is no common understanding of what a Project Management Office (PMO) should be, what purposes it ought to serve, or what roles it must play within an organisation’s delivery ecosystem. Practitioners transitioning from project management roles often identify the PMO as a vehicle for maintaining performance within the iron triangle of cost, schedule, and quality. Conversely, those operating at the strategic level tend to construe the PMO as an engine for enhancing strategic throughput and assuring good returns on investment. This divergence creates ambiguity regarding the PMO’s purpose, scope, and organisational positioning, thereby compromising project delivery.
It is widely acknowledged that project, programme, and portfolio management are concerned not only with delivering projects right, but equally with delivering the right projects to enable value creation. An effective PMO must therefore reconcile these two perspectives. What is required is an integrated organisational mechanism that enables strategy execution through improved operations, often achieved by selecting vital, “value-adding” project initiatives and delivering them effectively.
This paper proposes a systems-based model of the PMO, conceptualised as a socio-technical system that links business performance to investment realisation and project execution. Such a model is structured across three interdependent layers—strategic, tactical, and operational—each with distinct objectives and measurement domains, thus establishing the PMO as a business imperative. Furthermore, this article introduces the concept of a delivery platform (or realisation system), comprising organisational structures, integrated processes, competencies, and appropriate tools, as the foundational mechanism enabling effective project delivery. By establishing a clear causal chain from projects to operations to enterprise performance, the proposed model provides a holistic framework for aligning strategy, execution, and value realisation in complex project environments.
Challenges the Industry Faces
Large infrastructure projects (LIPs) are critical to (and have an impact on) the host country’s macro-economy, as they result in job creation, increased export opportunities and/or reduced imports, and contribute to economic growth. Indeed, LIPs play a crucial role in socio-economic development. “Investments in modern infrastructure lay the foundations for economic development and growth. Building roads, bridges, power transmission lines, and making other improvements creates jobs. When completed [effectively], these projects help a society increase its wealth and its citizens’ standard of living [otherwise, they will destroy both wealth and standard of living]” (US DoS, 2012).
However, the LIP industry often fails to meet expectations; in fact, only a few projects are successful.
“The megaproject market is worth about $9-trillion each year [and still increasing], and globally big builds are in a [costly] mess. It is rare to have one completed on time and on budget” (Nevine, 2015).
Moreover, according to the Independent Project Analysts (IPA), “Data from more than 300 global megaprojects show that 65 percent of industrial projects with a budget larger than $ 1 billion in 2010 U.S. dollars failed to meet business objectives. In some industrial sectors, the failure rate was as high as 75 percent” (Merrow, 2011). Surely, something quite structural ought to be addressed here.
“The construction industry process is one of the most complex and risky businesses undertaken; however, it has also been suggested that the construction industry has developed great difficulty in coping with the increasing complexity of major construction projects” (Wood and Ashton, 2010).
The widespread, persistent unsatisfactory outcomes of large infrastructure projects (LIPs) in both private and public sectors indicate that traditional project management has not necessarily kept pace with the ever-increasing complexity of LIPs. Part of the problem could stem from the PMO model. The string of project fiascos persists because the traditional PMO model is structurally incomplete.
Embracing the systems approach to project delivery would entail two major implications as follows:
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How to cite this paper: Mabelo, P. B. (2026). Systems Approach to Project Management Office; featured paper, PM World Journal, Vol. XIV, Issue V, May. Available online at https://pmworldjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/pmwj164-May2026-Mabelo-Systems-Approach-to-Project-Management-Office.pdf
About the Author
Pascal Bohulu Mabelo
Johannesburg, South Africa
Pascal Bohulu Mabelo (MBA, MSc Industrial, BSc Civil, Pr. Eng, Pr. CPM, Pr. PMSA, PMP) has over 25 years of professional experience in large and complex infrastructure projects, having served as a design engineer, project/programme manager, consultant, and executive. A seasoned practitioner and a recognised thought leader for his many contributions to the body of knowledge, he is also a former national chairman of Project Management South Africa (PMSA)—the largest professional project management association in Southern Africa.
An advocate for systems thinking, Pascal’s work focuses on applying systems engineering principles to navigate the complexity of large infrastructure projects (LIPs) and mitigate their chronic risks of cost and schedule overruns. His globally published books include Managing Engineering Processes in Large Infrastructure Projects (Cambridge, 2021), How to Manage Project Stakeholders (Routledge, 2020), and Operational Readiness (Routledge, 2020).
This paper builds on his prior investigations into organisational delivery capability by proposing a holistic, systems-based architectural interpretation of the Project Management Office (PMO).
His other papers can be viewed at https://pmworldlibrary.net/authors/pascal-bohulu-mabelo/
Pascal is currently a director and principal consultant at E 6 Project Consulting, or E6PC. For comments, further information, and clarifications, he may be contacted at consult@e6pc.com
