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3.7 out of 5 stars
3.7 out of 5
64 global ratings
5 star
47%
4 star
17%
3 star
12%
2 star
12%
1 star
13%
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A. Rodriguez
2.0 out of 5 stars Instead of "The Agile PMO," better to call it "Leading Change Initiatives"
Reviewed in the United States on September 17, 2014
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Too much a rehash of so-called "best practices," which in fact, could be used with any other activity and/or change initiative. Nothing new...

As other reviewers have also pointed out, not much depth and/or totally lacking in substance. I do begin to wonder where the 5- and 4-star reviews come from...

Moreso, the use of "Agile" in the title? There is nothing "Agile" about what he has written, if you take it from the perspective of the Agile Methodology/SCRUM, etc. After the last page, I felt like being a victim of a "bait-and-switch."

In summary, I was hoping to find some PMO-specific best practices, processes, methodologies, templates, etc. that I could leverage in my work. The title of the book is very misleading, and unfortunately came out feeling empty-handed...
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DJ_King_SD
3.0 out of 5 stars Helpful in some areas, but riddled with inexcusable errors
Reviewed in the United States on March 12, 2014
Verified Purchase
This book provided good insight into various concepts that surround the establishment of a successful, effective PMO. But ultimately, I was disappointed at the depth of the material and the number of grammatical errors, which prevented this book from fulfilling its potential.

The positives that I found include:
- "Kotter's 8-Step Change Model for Successful Transformational Change"
- Mission of the PMO

The section that describes guidelines for Agile PMO, while useful, was light on detail and did not cover the one scenario that I was looking for: small/mid-sized companies.

The author does not appear to have a strong grasp of agile principles. In one statement "Time boxing is great as long as you are flexible to changing the durations of the time box if necessary.", the author oversimplifies and does not explain what he meant by this, and why this is considered "best practice" in his mind. Changing the duration of the timebox can create chaos that disrupts the project. Also, there were only 10 pages or so of content related to "Agile PMO"; for a book that is titled "Agile PMO", I expected much more detailed coverage of the main subject matter.

Despite the good data I found reading this book, I found several grammatical and spelling errors, which are minor, but create a distraction. In the age of spell-checkers, I find it inexcusable for a book aimed at professionals (or any published book, for that matter) to have such blatant mistakes. Examples of such errors are below. There were also a number of mis-capitalized words such as "Methodology" in places that do not require it.

"personal" instead of "personnel"
"defiend" instead of "defend"
"you’re" instead of "your"

Due to the issues I mentioned, I give this book 3 stars overall. The content overall is ok but the errors detract from its value.
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Charles H. Kroll
3.0 out of 5 stars Call outs do not align and display properly
Reviewed in the United States on January 22, 2020
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The various call outs do not display properly on either a phone, a tablet or a PC.
Otherwise content is good, clear and accurate.
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Gerry H
5.0 out of 5 stars Short but to the point
Reviewed in the United States on May 12, 2013
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I wasn't originally looking for this book nor the topic, but when I noticed the book I was curious and purchased to read. The book was a quick ready but was on point with my experiences as to why many PMO's have typically failed. Which included becoming too focused on the methodology, passing papers, and not really deliverying value. However, instead of focusing in on the failures, Michael provides insights into how to implement and structure a successful PMO focusing on business outcomes and value.
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Aliza Errell
5.0 out of 5 stars Practical Guide
Reviewed in the United States on July 2, 2013
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This PMO guide is useful in the way I describes the value driven PMO, it is written in a well understood language and highlights the important implementation faults to avoid. I highly recommend it to anyone that handles PMO implementations.
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David Gur
5.0 out of 5 stars All you need is value
Reviewed in the United States on June 28, 2013
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The value driven PMO is easier said than done. This book with its guideline and the interesting case study is definitely a few steps - quite big - in the proper direction. The last chapter is very useful and practical. Thanks for the guide lines and the down to earth approach.
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S. Nothman
5.0 out of 5 stars A practical guide
Reviewed in the United States on June 28, 2013
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This guide shows the steps for creating the value driven PMO.
A PMO that is value driven makes sense, it is a wonder how executives will mandate a PMO and burn money without receiving any benefit. It's very surprising at times to see how businesses handle themselves.
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Amy Herman
5.0 out of 5 stars Agility for PMOs
Reviewed in the United States on June 28, 2013
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I am all for Agile as a mind set, this guide takes lean and agile concepts and implements them on the usual nemesis of Agility! We really need more of these type of ideas. I highly recommend it to anyone who handles PMOs - business executives as well as others.
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Northern Lad
1.0 out of 5 stars Very Poor - Read it in 1 hour - Nothing to do with Agile, and limited PMO experience comes through in the book
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 11, 2014
Verified Purchase
Very Disappointed, the title states Agile PMO, and the book says nothing about Agile approaches and how the PMO can support them.

Instead, the book has a focus on what PMO's are out there, and how to set them up and add value; again, if I read it in 1 hour, this goes to show that the topic is extremely light weight.

The types of PMO mentioned are nothing I've heard of before (and I've been around PMO's for over 15 years), and they are certainly no terms used by PMI or the P3O guides.

The PMO set up, is repeating Kotter's change management approach. Again, anyone who has set up PMO's before, knows that it is a piece of organisational design, and the people change is critical, therefore change management is at the heart of any implementation.

Finally, the add value - the book suggests focus on resources and prioritization of projects (obvious), yet, earlier in the book, there is a point where the focus on process and tools will fail. Anyone who has implemented PMO's will say there has to be a focus on all aspects, and if the people are not trained and brought on board, and the process is not in place, then the technology will not work, and ultimately there will be poor information, and poor decision making therefore no value to be add.

To add if the PMO focus on a process to capture key resources, the process may need to change next month to capture other key resources, and this keeps annoying project managers.

Overall, the experience of setting up PMO's, the industry knowledge of PMO's and the title suggesting Agile (yet no mention of Agile development), plus the size of the book, suggests there is little experience and understanding of PMO's.

There are better books on Change Management, and better books on PMO's.
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JEG
1.0 out of 5 stars Disappointed
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 5, 2013
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I am a very experienced programme manager and developed PMOs. I thought this would be a little tool to pass on to new members of PMO teams.

I was actually taken aback at the lack of real information and case studies. The body of work is double spaced, 66 pages with a few spelling errors - frankly poorly produced. Very light - too light for what the book was aiming to do. As well, there are 14 pages of 'sales' - of why to buy his OTHER books! I say steer clear away from this! It would be a better investment to take the money and take your Programme Manager for a cup of coffee and talk about a common sense approach to the need of a PMO.
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Oasis_Soup
1.0 out of 5 stars Lightweight Summary
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 29, 2016
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Bought this book to discover the principles of adopting an Agile approach within my PMO. The book really only scratches the surface at a very summary level not the "guide" or even "story of" that I expected - disappointed
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MartinL
4.0 out of 5 stars You can learn from mistakes of others
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 18, 2014
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Negative examples help you to avoid them and keep you on the right way to success.
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Ruben Ensalzado
3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting for a case study, but I will not use it as a reference book
Reviewed in Germany on October 3, 2019
Verified Purchase
It has great insights and if your PMO is in trouble, you will identify immediately with the author. I would reduce the font and then the book would be 40% shorter. It makes a lot of emphasis in creating a new office, instead of providing a perspective to implement changes to existing ones. It uses an entire section to say thank you to a different author for citing his book.
You will finish this book in 6 h. If you can buy it used, then it is a great investment. I would not drive strategy based on it.
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