PMO Strategies

Laura Barnard

In this podcast, PMO leaders and those wanting to capitalize on the best of project management to deliver the organization’s strategy will uncover the hidden secrets of the best PMOs, learn the game-changing techniques that transform any PMO into a value-driven IMPACT Engine, and explore the best ways for the PMO to become an integral part of the fabric and future of an organization. After spending two and a half decades helping organizations deliver change, with 15 of those years in the shoes of PMO leader inside organizations, Laura strongly believes that there is more to making an IMPACT than templates, tools, and process. She’ll show you how to make the shifts necessary to become a business-focused PMO that will become an invaluable organizational asset. With her guests and insights, we explore the sticky situations and tough challenges PMO leaders face, from sorting through all of the “noise” about what the PMO “should” do to finding the best ways for your PMO to make an IMPACT. Listen in, and you can discover how to shift your focus from outputs to outcomes, fundamentally changing the game for your PMO and personal success.

  1. 1D AGO

    356: PMO as Strategic Advisor: Helping Executives Make Better Decisions

    Welcome to the PMO Strategies Podcast + Blog, where PMO leaders become IMPACT Drivers! PMI Talent Triangle: Business Acumen Executives define strategy, but they don't always see what it takes to deliver it. That's where the PMO has a unique advantage. In this episode, I'm sharing how PMO leaders can move beyond delivery oversight and step into the role of strategic advisor. Because the PMO sits at the intersection of strategy and execution, it sees the full portfolio of initiatives, resource constraints, and dependencies that shape whether strategy succeeds or stalls. When leaders make decisions about new initiatives, shifting priorities, or reallocating resources, those choices affect everything already in motion. The PMO is often the only function with visibility across those interactions. That visibility creates an opportunity. I look at how PMO leaders can help executives understand the execution implications of their decisions, surface tradeoffs across the portfolio, and maintain focus on outcomes instead of activity. What You'll Learn Why the PMO's position between strategy and execution gives it unique advisory value.How to help leaders see the portfolio IMPACT of new initiatives.Why strategy decisions continue long after planning sessions end.How PMOs help executives understand tradeoffs across competing initiatives.Why strategic advising builds trust and elevates the PMO's role. Press play to learn how PMO leaders can help executives make smarter strategic decisions and ensure strategy can actually be delivered. P.S. International PMO Day is May 12th. Join Laura Barnard and Alexander David for a live 2.5-hour session showing how to close the gap between strategy and measurable business IMPACT. → Register free and get the Value Gap Assessment. Thanks for taking the time to check out the podcast! I welcome your feedback and insights! I’d love to know what you think and if you love it, please leave a rating and review in your favorite podcast player. Please leave a comment below to share your thoughts. See you online! Warmly, Laura Barnard GET NOTIFIED ABOUT NEW EPISODES | TELL US WHAT YOU WANT TO LEARN | PDU REPORTING INSTRUCTIONS Mentioned in this episode: 355: The Strategy Gap Your PMO Must Close Now

    34 min
  2. APR 12

    355: The Strategy Gap Your PMO Must Close Now

    Welcome to the PMO Strategies Podcast + Blog, where PMO leaders become IMPACT Drivers! PMI Talent Triangle: Business Acumen You have been told to “execute the strategy”, But does your organization even has one? If strategy looks like a list of competing priorities, you are not the problem. In this episode, I’m talking about how PMO leaders can support strategic planning. Strategy belongs to executive leadership. PMOs can facilitate the process that creates plans people can actually act on. That means addressing the elephant in the room: What matters most? What should we stop doing? What has to happen first? What You’ll Learn: • How to move the conversation from project lists to outcomes. • Why PMOs are natural planning facilitators. • How organizational visibility improves prioritization. • The questions leaders must answer before strategy becomes execution. This also ties directly to the strategy lifecycle I teach inside The IMPACT Engine Book. Strategy moves through definition, translation, execution, and realization. Today’s focus is the beginning, where clarity is built before delivery starts. Press play to hear how PMO leaders can guide strategic planning conversations, help executives prioritize what matters most, and translate strategy into work the organization can actually deliver. P.S. Celebrate and Elevate the PMO with International PMO Day. This special event celebrates PMO leaders who make an IMPACT and earn their seat at the table by solving real PMO challenges. I see you. This event is for you. Learn more about IPMO day here! Thanks for taking the time to check out the podcast! I welcome your feedback and insights! I’d love to know what you think and if you love it, please leave a rating and review in your favorite podcast player. Please leave a comment below to share your thoughts. See you online! Warmly, Laura Barnard GET NOTIFIED ABOUT NEW EPISODES | TELL US WHAT YOU WANT TO LEARN | PDU REPORTING INSTRUCTIONS Mentioned in this episode: 355: The Strategy Gap Your PMO Must Close Now

    32 min
  3. APR 5

    354: Stop Wasting Time: End Your Meeting-Based Culture Now

    Welcome to the PMO Strategies Podcast + Blog, where PMO leaders become IMPACT Drivers! PMI Talent Triangle: Ways of Working Meetings aren’t the enemy. Dependency is. In this episode, I address a problem many PMO and transformation leaders quietly create: operating models where nothing moves unless everyone gathers in a room. Meetings are part of leadership. Alignment, tradeoffs, escalation, and decisions often require conversation. But when calendars become the operating model, execution suffers. If your team spends all day in meetings and all night doing the real work, that’s not a productivity issue. It’s a system design issue. Key Takeaways: Why meeting saturation signals weak governance design. How undefined decision rights create calendar dependency. The difference between decision-driven meetings and status theater. Why execution shifts to nights and weekends in over-scheduled cultures. How to redesign your environment so meetings produce leverage A portfolio review that makes no prioritization decisions isn’t governance. It’s performance. 👉 Press play to hear your next move. When meeting them changes nothing. P.S. If your PMO is struggling to show strategic value, positioning may be the problem. Watch the free Rescue Your PMO webinar to diagnose what’s off track. Get the exact steps to turn things around fast. Learn more and register now. Thanks for taking the time to check out the podcast! I welcome your feedback and insights! I’d love to know what you think and if you love it, please leave a rating and review in your favorite podcast player. Please leave a comment below to share your thoughts. See you online! Warmly, Laura Barnard GET NOTIFIED ABOUT NEW EPISODES | TELL US WHAT YOU WANT TO LEARN | PDU REPORTING INSTRUCTIONS

    30 min
  4. MAR 29

    353: Dangerous Risk Mistakes PMO Leaders Make Every Day with Russ Parker

    Welcome to the PMO Strategies Podcast + Blog, where PMO leaders become IMPACT Drivers! PMI Talent Triangle: Ways of Working Most PMOs acknowledge risk management. Very few actually practice it. There is a difference between logging risks and managing them, and that gap is quietly costing organizations the projects they cannot afford to lose. In this episode of the PMO Strategies podcast, I am joined by Russ Parker, PMP®, PMI-RMP®, PMI-ACP®, owner of 44 Risk PM and a retired U.S. Marine Corps officer. Russ draws direct parallels between military planning discipline and how project organizations should embed real risk expertise to stop operating in perpetual crisis mode and start delivering the outcomes they were hired to produce. Key Takeaways: Why risk registers get created once and never revisited, and the pattern behind it The three root causes that turn risk management into an organizational formality How project managers accidentally become fire starters instead of fire preventers What a Risk Management Professional actually does inside a PMO How AI accelerates risk identification, historical analysis, and risk workshop preparation One of the most underused tools in project management Why positive risks are being ignored and what that costs your project delivery Practical steps to build risk management discipline right now Press play to discover how adding disciplined, specialized risk management to your PMO structure could be the most strategic decision you make for your project delivery outcomes this year. Connect with Russ Parker: Follow Russ on LinkedIn Learn more about 44 Risk PM Subscribe to The Bearded Risk PM on YouTube P.S. Is your PMO seen as overhead instead of strategic? Most PMOs don't fail because of people or tools. They fail because of positioning. Watch the free Rescue Your PMO webinar to assess what's going wrong and fix it fast. Learn more and register now. Thanks for taking the time to check out the podcast! I welcome your feedback and insights! I’d love to know what you think and if you love it, please leave a rating and review in your favorite podcast player. Please leave a comment below to share your thoughts. See you online! Warmly, Laura Barnard GET NOTIFIED ABOUT NEW EPISODES | TELL US WHAT YOU WANT TO LEARN | PDU REPORTING INSTRUCTIONS

    45 min
  5. MAR 22

    352: 5 Ways to Turn Failure Into Strategic Feedback

    Welcome to the PMO Strategies Podcast + Blog, where PMO leaders become IMPACT Drivers! PMI Talent Triangle: Power Skills Failure hits differently when you lead transformation. When governance fails to stick. When prioritization gets ignored. When a roadmap stalls. It feels personal. But what if it's not failure? What if it's feedback? In this episode, I challenge the belief that setbacks are verdicts. We reframe them as data that sharpens strategy and design. What You'll Learn: • Why transformation setbacks feel personal for PMO leaders • The difference between failure thinking and feedback thinking • How governance breakdowns expose executive misalignment • The early career lesson that led to The IMPACT Engine • What failing forward looks like in disciplined PMO leadership 🎧 Press play to shift from protecting credibility to strengthening your system. P.S. Is your PMO seen as overhead instead of strategic? Most PMOs don't fail because of people or tools. They fail because of positioning. Watch the free Rescue Your PMO webinar to assess what's going wrong and fix it fast. Learn more and register now. Thanks for taking the time to check out the podcast! I welcome your feedback and insights! I’d love to know what you think and if you love it, please leave a rating and review in your favorite podcast player. Please leave a comment below to share your thoughts. See you online! Warmly, Laura Barnard GET NOTIFIED ABOUT NEW EPISODES | TELL US WHAT YOU WANT TO LEARN | PDU REPORTING INSTRUCTIONS

    23 min
  6. MAR 15

    351: From Releases to Results with Egil Østhus

    Welcome to the PMO Strategies Podcast + Blog, where PMO leaders become IMPACT Drivers! PMI Talent Triangle: Ways of Working Challenge a common belief: moving faster means accepting more risk.  That tradeoff is outdated.  My guest this week is Egil Østhus, Co-founder and CEO of Unleash, a leading open-source feature management platform helping enterprises reduce innovation risk and connect software delivery directly to measurable business outcomes. Egil brings experience from both engineering and PMO leadership roles, giving him a rare perspective that bridges strategy, delivery, and real-world execution.  Together, we explore how PMO and transformation leaders can go fast and stay in control by shifting from celebrating releases to measuring real business outcomes. Traditional delivery metrics like on-time and on-budget are not enough. Senior leaders don’t care that software was deployed. They care whether it improved customer experience, reduced risk, or increased revenue.  What You’ll Learn:  Why shipping to production is not the same as delivering business value How controlled feature releases create faster learning cycles Why small experiments outperform large scope commitments How to measure success through stakeholder-defined outcomes  If you are ready to accelerate strategy delivery without creating operational chaos, this episode will reshape how you think about speed, risk, and IMPACT.  👉 Press play and start iterating your way to measurable business value.  Connect with Egil:  Follow him on LinkedIn  Learn more about Unleash    P.S. It’s time to look at the system behind your strategy execution. The IMPACT Engine System™ gives you the structured framework to align initiatives to real business outcomes and drive measurable IMPACT across your organization. Learn more and register now. Thanks for taking the time to check out the podcast! I welcome your feedback and insights!  I’d love to know what you think and if you love it, please leave a rating and review in your favorite podcast player. Please leave a comment below to share your thoughts. See you online! Warmly, Laura Barnard GET NOTIFIED ABOUT NEW EPISODES | TELL US WHAT YOU WANT TO LEARN | PDU REPORTING INSTRUCTIONS

    51 min
  7. MAR 8

    350: Industry Benchmarks Are Not a Strategy

    Welcome to the PMO Strategies Podcast + Blog, where PMO leaders become IMPACT Drivers! PMI Talent Triangle: Business Acumen Industry benchmarking has become one of the most sophisticated ways leaders justify decisions they already want to make.   “Top-performing organizations are doing this.”   “Best-in-class companies operate at this maturity level.”   Suddenly the direction feels obvious. Except it isn’t.  In this episode, I examine how benchmarking quietly derails performance when context is mistaken for strategy. Maturity chasing feels disciplined. Governance expansion feels responsible. But when structure outpaces capability, execution slows instead of accelerates.  You’ll hear why benchmarking is politically powerful, how maturity models create false signals of advancement, and where complexity without capability creates fragility inside your governance systems.  What You’ll Learn  1️⃣Why benchmarking reduces accountability instead of strengthening it  2️⃣How maturity scores improve while performance stays flat  3️⃣The structural law that complexity must match capability  4️⃣The disciplined test leaders should apply before adopting any benchmark  ▶️Press play to learn how to design governance systems for measurable IMPACT instead of optics.  P.S. Stop doing everything yourself and start driving transformation. The IMPACT Engine System™ is our self-paced, implementation framework designed for strategy delivery leaders. Show up with the clarity and confidence your organization needs. Learn more and get started today!  Thanks for taking the time to check out the podcast! I welcome your feedback and insights!  I’d love to know what you think and if you love it, please leave a rating and review in your favorite podcast player. Please leave a comment below to share your thoughts. See you online! Warmly, Laura Barnard GET NOTIFIED ABOUT NEW EPISODES | TELL US WHAT YOU WANT TO LEARN | PDU REPORTING INSTRUCTIONS

    34 min
  8. MAR 1

    349: 5 Reasons Spreadsheets Are Killing Your PMO Credibility

    Welcome to the PMO Strategies Podcast + Blog, where PMO leaders become IMPACT Drivers! PMI Talent Triangle: Power Skills If spreadsheets were the secret to PMO credibility, you’d already have a seat at the executive table.  Instead, many PMO leaders are buried in trackers, refining templates, and chasing status updates… still not being seen as strategic partners.  In this episode, I’m reflecting on why tools feel productive but often keep you stuck. I share how over-processing slows you down, how documentation gets mistaken for delivery, and what to focus on instead if you actually want traction and trust.  What You’ll Learn:  ✅ Why tools feel safe but don’t build credibility  ✅ How over-governance turns you into the bottleneck  ✅ Why documentation is not the same as delivery  ✅ What happens when you stay buried in templates  ✅ How to pivot from tracking activity to driving real business value  Spreadsheets are useful. Templates are helpful. But they are not the secret to successful leadership.  👉 Press play and learn how to stop hiding in tools and start leading with strategy.     P.S. If you’re tired of polishing dashboards and ready to build a true strategic operating system, the IMPACT Engine System™ gives you the framework to shift from tracking work to driving measurable IMPACT. Learn more and register today!  Thanks for taking the time to check out the podcast! I welcome your feedback and insights!  I’d love to know what you think and if you love it, please leave a rating and review in your favorite podcast player. Please leave a comment below to share your thoughts. See you online! Warmly, Laura Barnard GET NOTIFIED ABOUT NEW EPISODES | TELL US WHAT YOU WANT TO LEARN | PDU REPORTING INSTRUCTIONS

    33 min
4.9
out of 5
42 Ratings

About

In this podcast, PMO leaders and those wanting to capitalize on the best of project management to deliver the organization’s strategy will uncover the hidden secrets of the best PMOs, learn the game-changing techniques that transform any PMO into a value-driven IMPACT Engine, and explore the best ways for the PMO to become an integral part of the fabric and future of an organization. After spending two and a half decades helping organizations deliver change, with 15 of those years in the shoes of PMO leader inside organizations, Laura strongly believes that there is more to making an IMPACT than templates, tools, and process. She’ll show you how to make the shifts necessary to become a business-focused PMO that will become an invaluable organizational asset. With her guests and insights, we explore the sticky situations and tough challenges PMO leaders face, from sorting through all of the “noise” about what the PMO “should” do to finding the best ways for your PMO to make an IMPACT. Listen in, and you can discover how to shift your focus from outputs to outcomes, fundamentally changing the game for your PMO and personal success.

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