In my previous job at Cisco, I was put in charge of creating and running a PMO (Project Management Office) for the execution of the departmental strategy.
I had never done this before but I took the challenge. It was incredibly interesting and rewarding to have to figure out something from scratch. It was also a big responsibility but this is what made it so exciting to work on.
The approach I took was to examine the organisation and teams we had, look at what was going on already and figure out a way to make it work with what we had at hand and align with the teams and the existing projects. This PMO was focused on internal projects, not external so I think adapting to the organisation and your clients (internal or external) is extremely important.
I learned so much from designing a PMO. When I reflect back on it, there are five key things I believe are key when being in charge of a PMO.