Leadership in a strategy implementation project office in South Africa

Abstract

The Project Management Office plays a critical role in organizations in South Africa. It needs to ensure it has articulated all projects that entail an organization. The current paper’s essence is to examine Project Management Office leadership in South Africa with specific Project Management Office (PMO) and Project Management Office (PMO) leaders’ success. It also attempts to understand the impact that Project Management Office (PMO) maturity has on the success of projects. Finally, it considers the measurements used in understanding the success of a project. It uses a qualitative design approach with 27 respondents, and the responses undergo thematic analysis to understand the implications of the current study. The paper shows a strong correlation between Project Management Office maturity in South Africa with effective leadership with strong technical skills and high emotional intelligence (emotional quotient EQ) and interpersonal relationship skills. It also indicates a need to improve communication skills and flexibility in project management which is majorly lacking in failed projects despite the improvement depicted over the years. The paper shows that the success of the Project Management Offices is down to the leadership of the PMO and leads to a resultant increase in maturity and project performance