The Federal PMO Playbook
Agile, Lean Six Sigma, and risk practices for agency program offices
Executive summary
A practitioner's guide to standing up a high-performing Program Management Office inside a federal agency — with cadence, artifacts, and governance patterns drawn from real HHS and DoD engagements.
Why federal PMOs fail
Most PMOs collapse under reporting overhead before they deliver value. The fix is a thin governance spine, a quarterly outcomes review, and a standard intake that protects engineering capacity.
A reference operating model
We recommend a three-tier model: Portfolio (quarterly), Program (monthly), Project (bi-weekly). Each tier carries one decision artifact, one risk artifact, one outcomes artifact — no more.
Risk and EVM in practice
Earned Value works only when WBS discipline is real. We outline a lightweight EVM-lite that satisfies CFO reporting without crushing delivery teams.
Lean Six Sigma where it pays
DMAIC fits compliance-heavy back-office processes. It is the wrong tool for product discovery — use it surgically.
Adoption checklist
Twelve concrete steps to stand up a federal PMO in ninety days, with templates for charter, RAID log, and stage-gate review.
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