Date: 15/12/2025

Written by: Majed Abdeen

During the webinar “Take the Leap: Your First Year in a PMO / How to Get into a PMO” (hosted by PMI MENA and PMO Global Alliance (PMOGA) on 12/12/2025), my session focused on the evolution from a traditional PMO toward a modern Value Management Office (VMO), with an emphasis on value delivery and value realization. Because the webinar format limits discussion time, this article responds in writing to some of the questions raised—specifically those related to strategy alignment, governance, and decision-making.

Program Management vs. PMO when both are aligned to strategy

Even when both are strategically aligned, program management and a PMO differ in “what they manage” and “what they are accountable for”.

When both are explicitly aligned with organizational strategy, the primary difference is their position of accountability: programs are accountable for integrated benefits/outcomes, whereas PMOs are accountable for enabling governance and delivery capability at scale.

PMI defines a program as “a group of related projects and program activities managed in a coordinated manner to obtain benefits not available from managing them individually” (PMBOK 8th, 2025, p. 271). PMI further defines program management as the application of knowledge and principles “to achieve the program objectives and to obtain benefits and control not available by managing program components individually” (PMBOK 8th, 2025, p. 271). These definitions indicate that, even when strategy-aligned, the program’s strategic contribution is operationalised through benefits realisation across interdependent components.

By contrast, PMI describes the PMO as an organizational entity (often a department or team) “primarily tasked with centralizing activities related to the management of portfolios, programs, and/or projects,” noting that its services vary by organizational needs (PMBOK 8th, 2025, p. 271). In other words, a PMO’s strategic alignment is typically expressed through standardisation, oversight, decision support, and capability-building across many initiatives rather than through ownership of one integrated set of benefits.

This distinction becomes clearer when related strategic management concepts are considered. PMI defines portfolio management as “the centralized management of one or more portfolios to achieve strategic objectives” (PMBOK 8th, 2025, p. 270). In this framing, program management is a strategy-execution vehicle for specific strategic outcomes, while the PMO functions as an organizational mechanism that strengthens governance and consistency for projects/programs/portfolios pursuing those objectives.

Summary of the main difference (strategy lens):

• Program management: accountable for benefits and coordinated outcomes across related projects.

• PMO: accountable for enabling and standardizing governance, practices, and support across multiple initiatives.

In short, a program owns “the change,” while a PMO owns “the system” through which changes are governed and delivered.

Strategy, Governance & Decision-Making:

How VMO differs from PMO

A VMO can be understood as an evolution of PMO thinking where governance is explicitly designed to optimize value definition, value selection, value realization, and value sustainment, not merely delivery conformance.

A helpful bridge between PMO and VMO is the discipline of Benefits Realization Management (BRM). PMI positions BRM as a way to measure how projects and programs add “true value,” structured around identifying, executing, and sustaining benefits (PMI, 2019).

How a VMO impacts strategic decisions and portfolio prioritization differently from a PMO

A traditional PMO, even when “strategic,” often influences prioritization indirectly: by standardizing intake, improving business cases, enforcing governance controls, and providing performance reporting. This strengthens decision quality but can still leave the decision logic dominated by schedule/cost efficiency.

Project Management Offices: A Practice Guide explicitly introduces the VMO as a [xMO] variant: it is “responsible for ensuring that projects deliver maximum value,” focusing on “evaluation, prioritization, tracking of project benefits, and return on investment (ROI), ensuring that projects align with the organization’s strategic objectives” (PMI-PMOGA, 2025, p. 25). This articulation implies a shift in the dominant decision-making logic from “Are we delivering efficiently?” to “Are we investing in and delivering the highest value work?”

A VMO shifts the prioritization conversation toward value-based investment logic, explicitly requiring that choices be justified by expected outcomes and how those outcomes/benefits will be realized and sustained.

PMI’s BRM framework operationalizes this difference through governance questions such as:

• whether benefits are aligned with strategic goals,

• whether benefits are measurable and forecasted, and

• whether project selection/funding decisions are based on the impact to expected benefits (PMI, 2016, pp. 1-3).

In this sense, a VMO does not “rank projects”; instead, it strengthens strategic decision-making by ensuring that:

1. Benefits are explicitly defined (what value means, for whom, and by what measures).

2. Benefits owners exist and are consulted.

3. Decisions continuously re-check whether initiatives remain relevant based on benefits and changing conditions (PMI, 2016, pp. 2-4).

While PMOs can evolve into value-driven service providers, the PMOs Practice Guide highlights that PMOs historically were “administrative bodies focused on enforcing standards and processes,” and argues for transforming them “from rigid, process-focused entities into dynamic, customer-oriented partners” (PMI-PMOGA, 2025, p. 45). A VMO can be interpreted as a governance and operating model that accelerates this transformation by making value tracking and benefits logic central to portfolio choices.

The prioritization implication is also consistent with PMI’s governance models in the PMBOK® Guide, Eighth Edition. PMI notes that governance includes “the framework, functions, and processes that guide project management decisions and activities to optimize the project’s value delivery” (PMBOK 8th, 2025, pp. 10-13).

Moreover, PMI provides an example of governance metrics that includes indicators of how effective prioritization decisions are, “such as return on investment (ROI)”. Taken together, these points support the claim that a VMO strengthens strategic prioritization by institutionalising value-based criteria and feedback loops.

This aligns with public-sector portfolio governance logic in the PM² Programme Management Guide, which places prioritization and investment choices at the portfolio/governance layer (often an executive committee), rather than treating selection as a purely operational PMO function (European Commission, 2021, pp. 10-11).

Therefore, compared with a PMO, a VMO typically changes portfolio decision-making by:

1. Embedding value/benefits and ROI as first-class selection criteria (PMBOK 8th, 2025, p. 13; PMI-PMOGA, 2025, p. 25).

2. Shifting executive dialogue from delivery conformance to value trajectory, consistent with governance being oriented toward optimizing value delivery  (PMBOK 8th, 2025, pp. 10, 45).

3. Operationalizing prioritization through ongoing evaluation and benefits tracking, rather than only stage-gate approval and status reporting (PMI-PMOGA, 2025, p. 25).

Who should lead the VMO Strategy, Finance, Operations, or the CEO’s office, and what is the rationale?

The leadership placement of a VMO is fundamentally a question of enterprise decision rights. A VMO is expected to influence evaluation, prioritization, benefits tracking, and ROI governance (PMI-PMOGA, 2025, p. 25). To do this credibly, it needs authority to orchestrate cross-functional trade-offs and align investment decisions with strategic objectives.

Evidence from portfolio governance research and guidance consistently points to senior executive decision ownership:

• PM² frames governance/portfolio direction through an “appropriate Governance Body,” commonly a portfolio layer or executive committee (European Commission, 2021, pp. 10-11).

• BRM explicitly asks whether benefit owners are accountable and evaluated for benefit targets, reinforcing that value realization depends on business ownership—not only project delivery (PMI, 2019).

Implication: PMI describes governance as guiding decisions to optimise value delivery, explaining that governance is “often composed of an executive project sponsor, [a] PMO leader, some type of governance board, and a project manager” (PMBOK 8th, 2025, p. 12). This description implies that effective governance, and therefore value-based steering, requires executive sponsorship and a governance body able to arbitrate priorities across organizational boundaries.

From this perspective, the VMO should be a place where enterprise-wide trade-offs can be made and enforced. Practically, the most defensible placements are:

• C-Level / enterprise leadership function (recommended in many contexts):

This placement is most effective when the organization needs a neutral, enterprise-wide decision authority that can balance strategic intent, funding constraints, and operational adoption—because value realization almost always crosses multiple silos (business, IT, finance, risk/compliance, and operations). Locating the VMO under the CEO/COO office (or an enterprise transformation office reporting to them) reduces functional bias (e.g., “IT-first,” “finance-only,” or “operations-only” priorities) and increases compliance with value-based decisions, including the politically difficult ones—such as stopping work, reallocating budgets mid-year, or changing operating models.

• Strategy office (strong option):

Best when the organization’s main pain point is the “strategy-to-execution gap.” Strategy leadership can ensure strategic themes translate into measurable benefit hypotheses—but it must be tightly coupled with finance and operations to avoid becoming conceptual.

• Finance (CFO) (conditional option):

Strong for investment discipline and benefits tracking, but may overweight short-term financial returns unless balanced with customer/service outcomes, which are explicitly part of VMO responsibilities and also appear as examples of governance metrics. BRM’s emphasis on defining tangible/intangible, short/long-term benefits supports a broader lens than finance alone.

• Operations / COO (conditional option):

Strong for adoption and sustainment (“benefits after go-live”), but can unintentionally prioritize continuity over strategic renewal unless co-governed with strategy/finance.

Rationale: A robust compromise many organizations adopt is a VMO Head reporting to the CEO/COO with strong dotted-line governance to Strategy and Finance, and explicit participation of operational benefit owners. This is consistent with the BRM requirement for benefit ownership and sustainment beyond delivery.

It is best to place the VMO in a part of the organization that can legitimately govern value-based prioritization and enforce benefits accountability across silos—most commonly an enterprise leadership position (e.g., C-Level/strategy execution), with strong partnership from Finance and Operations because value realization requires both investment discipline and operational adoption.

How governance models shift when moving from schedule/cost control (PMO) to value realization (VMO)

A shift from traditional PMO governance to VMO governance is not the removal of governance; rather, it is a reorientation of governance toward value realization supported by fit-for-purpose control and transparency, and it re-anchors governance around value.

From “conformance” metrics to “value” metrics

Traditional PMO governance often emphasizes compliance with baselines and delivery efficiency (scope/time/cost/quality). PMOs frequently contribute by improving alignment, repeatable processes, and performance across “scope, time, cost, and quality”.

Effective governance requires target metrics aligned with strategic goals, “signaling mechanisms or alarm systems” (often leading indicators), and feedback mechanisms that improve decision-making effectiveness. This represents a shift away from governance being primarily a compliance mechanism, toward governance as an adaptive decision system for value delivery.

VMO governance retains those controls but treats them as means, not ends. BRM reframes governance through benefit logic:

• Identify whether projects/programs can produce intended business results.

• Execute benefits while managing risks and changing conditions.

• Sustain benefits after transition into operations.

Disciplined Agile (DA) perspective: lean governance strategy, risk-based milestones, and transparency

DA explicitly discusses governance strategy and distinguishes approaches that can either support learning or create waste. It highlights that organizations often rely on “traditional governance strategy” where teams produce comprehensive documentation primarily to pass reviews, describing this as “difficult, expensive, and time-consuming,” often with long feedback cycles that increase the cost of addressing issues (Ambler & Lines, 2020, p. 213). In contrast, it describes “lean governance strategy,” where “risk-based milestones” are an important component. This aligns strongly with VMO intent: governance should be risk- and value-informed rather than document-centric.

Principles of lean governance:

• Collaboration over conformance

• Enablement over inspection

• Continuous monitoring over quality gates

• Transparency over management reporting

The modern VMO emphasises transparency mechanisms that enable governance without excessive overhead. For example, it notes that management reporting should ideally be “automated via dashboard technology,” rather than manually generated. The VMO highlights that visual work management (e.g., task boards) “increases transparency for the stakeholders”. These practices support a VMO-style governance model where value signals are visible, and decision cycles are shorter.

In a VMO model, governance gates increasingly ask:

• Are benefits explicitly defined and measurable?

• Are benefit owners accountable and engaged?

• Are funding decisions tied to the impact of the expected benefits?

• Is the value being verified against benefit plans during execution and after transition?

This is also where value governance becomes more behaviorally complex than schedule/cost control.

Therefore, governance “shifts” in two linked ways:

1. Decision criteria move from delivery-only indicators toward benefit-based justification and evidence.

2. Accountability expands beyond project managers to include benefit owners and operational leaders responsible for sustainment.

Conclusion

In real organizations, many of us learn the hard way that strategy alignment alone does not remove role ambiguity. A slide that says “aligned to Vision 2030” (or “aligned to digital transformation”) is not enough to prevent confusion about who decides, who owns benefits, and who is accountable when priorities must change. Clarity emerges only when accountability and decision rights are explicitly stated.

In practical terms, program management remains the best mechanism for coordinating related projects to deliver integrated benefits. For example, a government “digital services” program that must synchronize policy changes, platform delivery, cybersecurity, and citizen adoption; or a bank “digital onboarding” program where the real benefit depends on compliance, operations, branches, and customer experience moving together. In both cases, the program manager’s job is not simply to deliver outputs, but to orchestrate dependencies so the intended outcomes actually materialize.

Meanwhile, the VMO’s value is in making execution predictable and governable at scale, standardizing governance, building delivery capability, and creating consistent visibility across portfolios, programs, and projects. For instance, when multiple ministries or business units run initiatives in parallel, we can say that the VMO becomes - in effect - a common language between these initiatives: a unified lifecycle, common reporting, consistent risk escalation, and repeatable practices that help leaders compare initiatives and intervene early.

In the VMO context, governance must shift from schedule/cost control toward value-optimizing decision systems—with aligned metrics, early warning signals, and feedback loops that support stop/pivot/scale decisions. This is where we can use DA practices to strengthen governance: risk-based milestones instead of document-heavy gatekeeping, transparency through dashboards, and visual management that makes work, bottlenecks, and outcomes visible to stakeholders—so governance becomes faster, lighter, and more evidence-driven rather than bureaucratic. This is what is called “Adaptive Governance”.

References

Ambler, S. W. & Lines, M., 2020. Choose Your WoW!: A Disciplined Agile Delivery Handbook for Optimizing Your Way of Working. 1.1 ed. Newtown Square, Pennsylvania: Project Management Institute, Inc.

European Commission, 2021. PM² Programme Management Guide. Guide 1.0 ed. Brussels: European Union.

PMBOK 8th, 2025. A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge. Newtown Square: Project Management Institute (PMI).

PMI, 2016. Benefits realization management framework. [Online]
Available at: https://www.pmi.org/-/media/pmi/documents/public/pdf/learning/thought-leadership/benefits-realization-management-framework.pdf
[Accessed July 2019].

PMI, 2019. Benefits realization management: a practice guide. Newtown Square, Pennsylvania: Project Management Institute, Inc.

PMI-PMOGA, 2025. Project Management Offices: A Practice Guide. Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute (PMI).