Another large benefit of a PMO is bringing project managers together to share experiences. Great project managers have a series of past project failures, experiences, and near failures that they draw from. Many risk assessments are simply a collection of past failures to stimulate your thinking process on new projects. Think about your personal life wisdom. You are talking with a friend or colleague and they say that they have just booked a trip to Italy and will see Venice and Rome, and you just came back from the very same trip. Generally, the first thing you do is offer advice and warnings:

• “There is a little restaurant right next to the Pantheon. You can people watch and they have an amazing lunch!”

• “Watch out for crooked taxi drivers; we had one take us two miles without using his meter. He charged us 20 euros!”

• “Once you have seen all of the sites, take a guided tour of all of them at night — it is truly beautiful!”

The advice that you offer your friend is based on actual experiences. You did enjoy the restaurant and the night tour. You did get taken for a real ride in that taxi. These are past successes and failures in your adventure.

A PMO creates the same atmosphere for project managers. Even if there is no official PMO within your company or organization, a Community of Practice is a great way to share experiences and assist each other in being successful.

One thing to watch out for in the collective group is losing the individuality of each project manager. This becomes the greatest struggle for PMOs: How do you create a standardized environment that still allows project managers the freedom to manage in their own style? A difficult question to answer, but an important one.