PMO Voices
Elizabeth Dewing
Rebuilding, Refocusing, and Rethinking PMO
In this PMO Voices conversation, Liz shares an insightful perspective on career reinvention, portfolio leadership, and what makes a PMO effective.
Elizabeth Dewing’s PMO career spans continents. After relocating from South Africa to the UK during COVID, she made a deliberate choice to rebuild — starting with stability before working back towards the strategic portfolio leadership roles that play to her strengths. We spoke to her about what high-performing PMOs actually do, why governance without change management falls short, and what it means to start again in a profession that’s deeply relational.
THE CONVERSATION
Starting Over — By Design, Not Default
When Liz arrived in the UK during COVID, she made a deliberate decision of stability first. Rather than stepping straight back into a high-pressure leadership role she chose a project management position at a City Council — something she could do more confidently while navigating a major life transition. Liz says: “I needed margin. I needed something I could do safely, without the same level of pressure, while I got my life set up again.”
Since then, Liz moved back toward more strategic roles — ultimately landing in a portfolio-facing position that plays to her strengths: shaping initiatives, aligning work to outcomes, and maintaining a big-picture view.
What PMOs Must Try Not to Do — And What the Best Ones Do Well
One of Liz’s views is that too many PMOs can easily drift into abstraction. They become focused on templates, frameworks, and theoretical “best practice” — rather than what the business actually needs. Liz says: “You can’t be lost in a theoretical, academic universe of perfect project management. You’re in service to the business.”
For Liz, a high-performing PMO comes down to a couple of factors and understanding business drivers.
High-performing PMOs DO:
- know what matters to the organisation
- understand what leaders are trying to achieve
- focus effort where it will have the biggest impact
And DON’T:
- become distracted and focus on process completeness or over-engineer governance and lose sight of outcomes
“You can’t be lost in a theoretical, academic universe of perfect project management. You’re in service to the business.”
— Elizabeth Dewing
Governance Is Not Enough
Liz described the PMO environment she works in as strategically mature — with strong governance, structured portfolios, and clear oversight.
But there’s a catch. “Projects can be governed properly, but still not stick. And then they come back again six months later.” Having well-positioned sponsorship is helpful, but you can’t just pull hierarchical levers. Increased visibility brings clarity, and also increased accountability and that can be daunting. The business areas you’re dealing with need to trust that when you raise red flags you are first and foremost trying to help them focus attention on the right place and come alongside them to fix things… NOT expose people or lay blame.
The missing piece? Change management.
Without effective adoption and embedding:
- Projects are delivered but not sustained
- Benefits are not realised
- The same problems reappear
This is where PMOs must extend beyond governance and into real organisational change.
WHAT HIGH-PERFORMING PMOs GET RIGHT
- Know what matters to the organisation
- Understand what leaders are trying to achieve
- Focus effort where it will have the biggest impact
- Don't over-engineer governance or lose sight of outcomes
The Reality of Portfolio-Level PMO
From the outside, PMO can look like reporting and templates. From the inside, at portfolio level, Liz described a function that includes:
- Quality assurance across the portfolio
- Business case and closure report assurance
- Governance and funding approvals
- Tooling, onboarding, and training
- Financial tracking and internal recharges
- Supporting decision-making forums
It’s detailed, complex, lovely work and is often underestimated!
“The volume and breadth of work in a portfolio office is enormous. People don’t always realise what sits behind it.”
AI in PMO: From Quarterly Effort to Monthly Insights
Liz’s experience when AI was introduced into the PMO quality assurance (QA) space at the council began with a Pilot project and is now part of the team.
Before the AI project:
- QA was manual and intensive
- Only one-third of the portfolio could be reviewed each month
Now, using a Copilot-based AI agent:
- The entire portfolio is assessed monthly
- Trends are visible much earlier
- Support and training can be targeted more effectively
The shift to AI in the PMO is not just about efficiency — it’s about better insight and smarter intervention. Liz says: “Start with what hurts”.
Advice for New PMOs
When asked how to build a PMO from scratch, Liz’s answer was simple: “Start with the burning platforms.”
That means start with:
- Audit findings
- Projects running late or over budget
- Funding tied up with no delivery
- Lack of visibility for decision-makers
Instead of building a PMO based on theory, build it around real organisational pain points and do this proportionally.
Many organisations create large, detailed templates — but expect everyone to use them in full and Liz says ‘use what fits’ and even if “they give you the Rolls-Royce version. You don’t have to use all of it.”
The most effective PMOs:
- Tailor governance to context
- Scale documentation to fit the work
- Reduce unnecessary burden
Avoid excessive process which doesn’t improve delivery — it slows it down.
“Start with the burning platforms.”
— Elizabeth Dewing
PMO Is Relational, Not Just Operational
Perhaps the most overlooked aspect of PMO is relationships. In complex organisations- especially in the public sector- understanding context takes time and unless you have built relationships and credibility it can be hard for the organisation to accept the truth-telling that should come from increasing PMO maturity.
“It’s deeply relational. You have to come alongside the business and understand how it actually operates.”
PMOs succeed when they:
- Build trust with delivery teams
- Understand real constraints
Translate business needs into structured delivery.
A Quiet Theme: Identity and Reinvention
Running through the conversation was a more personal thread and Liz spoke openly about the challenge of being highly experienced- but in a new environment where that history isn’t visible. It’s a reminder that careers are not just built on capability — but on context, recognition, and identity.
And often, those have to be rebuilt. Liz’s story is not just about PMO — it’s about perspective. It’s about stepping back and asking:
- What does the business actually need?
- Where are we adding real value?
- And what would make this work stick?
Because ultimately, the best PMOs are not the most complex. They are the most connected, focused, and useful.
Final Thoughts
The best PMOs are not the most complex. They are the most connected, focused, and useful. Start small. Focus on what matters. Build from there.
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