Similar to a Project Management Office (PMO), have you heard of a Quality Management Office (QMO), which provides similar oversight and tools needed to address the non-project, ongoing, quality needs of a organization?
For new projects the PMO works well in providing the oversight and methodologies needed to assure that the project complete successfully. A key success factor in this approach is the visibility and accountability of the PMO with top-level management. Problems discovered by the PMO are reported immediately to the top and are dealt with immediately. However, for some organizations (the IT industry in my case) ongoing tasks such as maintenance and enhancements are often left up to the individual groups with very little visibility at the top (until things go really bad). Don't get me wrong, there are Quality Assurance Teams that provide tools and training, and all groups are aware and try to adhere to quality standards like ISO, but the oversight and reporting from a central source is often not there resulting in quality issues and customer dissatisfaction.
So my question is, can an organization's Quality Assurance program(s) be expanded into a framework similar to that of a PMO, or are there other available solutions?
Thank You
Tags: management, Office, PMO, project, QMO, quality, vs