Customer Relationships Activities Across the PMO Continuum

The "customer relationships" function along the PMO competency continuum represents the development of capability within the project management environment to establish and manage an effective customer relationship process. This begins with emphasis on the customer's interest and involvement in specific project efforts, and it expands with PMO functional capability into business areas associated with projects conducted by the relevant organization.

Table 18.1 presents an overview of the range of prescribed PMO customer relationships activities according to each level in the PMO competency continuum.

Table 18.1: Range of Customer Relationships Activities across the PMO Continuum

Project Office	Basic PMO	Standard PMO	Advanced PMO	Center of Excellence
Applies customer relationship process guidance	Manages customer relationship and project information Monitors customer relationship information Monitors customer project information	Manages customer relationships across project duration Prescribes customer project participation Manages customer project proposals Administers customer project contracts Evaluates customer project satisfaction	Manages customer relationships across business interests Manages pre- and postproject customer activity Conducts forums and interactions for customer relationship development Examines and implements customer partner arrangements	Evaluates customer relationships for business benefits Analyzes customer base Evaluates trends in customer relationships Recommends customer relationship improvements

The project office has fundamental responsibility for implementing the established customer relationship management process, usually as such process steps are incorporated into the project management methodology. The focus at this level is normally on the relationship established with the customer's project manager or other designated customer business representative. In the absence of formal guidance or process steps, the project office will simply ensure that prescribed project deliverables are presented on time and to the customer's satisfaction for acceptance. It will also manage any customer issues or problems associated with project performance.

Mid-range PMO levels develop and implement a comprehensive customer relationship management capability in the project management environment. This includes establishing practices that proactively manage customer participation in project performance, facilitate customer contract administration, and provide serious attention to customer satisfaction issues and conditions. In conjunction with these activities, the mid-range PMO is collecting and using pertinent customer information to examine and develop a broader business perspective in key customer relationships.

The center of excellence provides an additional business capability in its detailed examination and analysis of customer business relationships within the project management environment and across the relevant organization.

Customer relationship management represents a business approach developed and applied in the course of conducting project management. Therefore, concepts and considerations for customer relationship management can be introduced in the PMO "project management methodology" function (see Chapter 1). The business nature of this function will also be influenced by policies created under the PMO "project governance" function (see Chapter 5), strategies applied in the PMO "project portfolio management" function (see Chapter 17), and executive guidance prescribed by the PMO "business performance" function (see Chapter 20).