How to ask for more PMO funding We’ve written before about how to ask for more PMO staff to support your growing organization, but sometimes you need more than just bodies to deliver your strategy.
Need More PMO Funding?
In this article we’ll look at how to secure more PMO funding. It can be a difficult conversation, and one that some PMO leaders put off, through fear of being told they can’t have any extra money. However, if you want your PMO to succeed and grow, you are going to have to face the discussion at some time. Here’s how to prepare.
Know Your Worth
One of the risks with PMOs is that they see their budget cut. The truism is that PMOs have a lifecycle of around seven years, and while that’s not the case for many successful PMOs, the fact the truism exists at all is because it is grounded in reality. Not all PMOs stay the course. When investment across the business is cut, executives look for areas that they feel they can do without, and the PMO is often one of the targets in a cost reduction exercise.
Even if you don’t think that’s a risk for your PMO, it’s always wise to know your worth, and to make sure other people do too. Share your successes and be clear about how your team contributes to the organization. It’s hard to convince people to invest more in your department if they don’t understand what you do in the first place.
Create A Business Case
In a project-driven organization, any request for funding starts with a business case, and your request for funding should be the same.
Think clearly about what you want the money for. PMOs need investment for a range of things including:
- Software: rolling out new tools or upgrading your existing estate
- Training: professional or in-house training for your project management community and PMO staff
- Building maturity: putting everyone through a certification exam or implementing a maturity model
- Communication materials: investing in video equipment, printing or other communications tools.
Your business case should follow the same standard template as used elsewhere in the business, covering the same content.
In addition, be aware of the general costs of running your department. Software licence fees may increase year on year as your organization grows or more users are added. Staff costs may increase through offering people cost of living wage increases. These P&L costs should be something you are managing as a matter of course for your team, and aren’t really what we are talking about today – however, you should still factor them into your annual budget request along with your other funding requirements.
Show The Benefits
Your business case should clearly show the benefits of the investment that you are asking for. If you want a new software tool, answer the questions that the decision makers will be asking:
- State why you want the tool and why the time is right for the investment now
- State what benefits it will bring to the company: improved reporting, shorter turnaround times, better management information, freeing up time from resources who would be better spent doing other things, increase capacity etc.
- State why you believe this is the right choice: use case studies from other businesses, cite industry research and show you have done your homework.
- State how you will track the benefits to show that the investment is delivering the returns you expected it would.
In short, make your business case compelling!
Offer Choices
Another tip for presenting your funding request is to offer choices. You might want to put 50 project managers through Primavera training, and you might be able to justify why this is necessary and a good idea. But if you just offer that one option, you are leaving the execs with only two choices: give you the funding or refuse it outright.
You know your organization better than we do, but it is sometimes sensible to present options. For example:
- 2-day classroom based training for 50 project managers at a fixed cost.
- 1-day classroom based training for 50 project managers, with online training to support the transfer of knowledge back to the workplace and two staff going through system administrator training to better support their colleagues.
- Online-only training for 50 project managers and 1-day administrator training for two staff.
You can cut this anyway you want. Set out the benefits for each option and include your recommendation for the plan you would like to move ahead with. Just don’t offer an option that you wouldn’t be prepared to take! Hopefully then the decision makers feel that there are a range of choices and can make a risk-based decision that still results in a win outcome for you and your team.
Ask At The Right Time
It pays (literally) to know the funding cycle for your business. Missing the cut off for investment in this financial year, for example, could mean the difference between accessing funds or having to wait another 12 months before your suggestions can be considered.
As the PMO team, you should be linked into the budget timescales for the business anyway, so note the key deadlines and get your requests in front of the right people when it matters.
In Summary
Asking for additional funding isn’t an easy conversation, but when you need to take your PMO to the next level, it’s essential. Plan in advance, be able to justify why you need the additional funds and how they will be used, then prepare your request and ask.
No one is going to offer you more PMO funding, largely because they don’t know your requirements and vision for the PMO as well as you do. There are plenty of other department directors asking for an increase in their budget, so you have to make your voice heard and make your request irresistible.
Then when you do get your funding approved, move quickly to spend it in the way that you said and start tracking the benefits.