10/07/2026
PMI's Pulse of the Profession found that 89% of organizations have a PMO. Only 41% say it consistently delivers value.
The gap rarely sits in governance frameworks or methodology choices. It sits in change adoption: who owns what happens after the technical cutover is done, and whether the people doing the work can actually use the new system on day one.
In our experience, the pattern looks the same across industries: change management gets compressed into a training week near the end of the timeline. A few sessions, a quick reference guide, a Slack channel for questions. Then the project closes, the consultants leave, and the support desk absorbs a spike of "how do I" tickets that look like defects but are really unfamiliarity.
That pattern is expensive. Rework, workaround proliferation, adoption stalls that quietly erode the business case. PMI's own guidance on building a PMO for change management frames adoption as a full lifecycle, from initiation through sustainment, not a deliverable tacked onto the final sprint.
What separates organizations that close the value gap: change gets its own named owner, its own readiness gates before go-live, training coordinated against the actual release calendar, and adoption measured at 30, 60, and 90 days after cutover. The PMO Center of Excellence that governs the project plan also governs the people plan, under one operating model.
We wrote up the full evaluation framework, including seven specific checks to run on any CoE before you select a partner. The walkthrough is in the first comment.
