Step 2 - Establish Project Management Office

After you have set up the ICAM governance structure, you will need to establish a way to support the execution and operations of the projects and work streams within the ICAM program. This section examines a Program Management Office (PMO) as one possible alternative for providing ICAM program support; however, an agency should evaluate potential program management alternatives and select the option that best fits its needs.

An ICAM PMO serves a complementary role to the ESC and while establishing both an ESC and a PMO may not be strictly necessary, larger organizations may see the need to separate governance and operational responsibility within their ICAM program. A PMO helps ensure that the individual projects and investments that comprise the ICAM program run smoothly and achieve the expected results within the defined budgetary and schedule constraints.

The PMO will typically be responsible for the following functions:

• Planning and coordinating implementation efforts across various ICAM stakeholders and component programs (e.g., credentialing, physical access control, logical access control, personnel security, etc.)

• Maintaining an enterprise ICAM perspective to ensure alignment of all component programs with organizational objectives

• Serving as a centralized point of contact for ICAM questions, issues, and concerns

• Planning for and securing program funding to execute ICAM capabilities

• Handling communications and outreach to both internal and external stakeholders

• Managing program risks and issues to resolution across agency office/component/bureau boundaries

 Establish PMO Governance Structure. PMOs generally follow standardized project management policies, processes, and methods. Within ICAM, a PMO provides opportunities to share lessons learned both within an agency and across agencies. It may serve as an advisor to other agency offices or programs impacted by the ICAM program on addressing ICAM as appropriate within other agency-wide capabilities. An ICAM PMO acts as a single, centralized point of contact for the agency‘s ICAM program. The PMO is the primary authority for performing acquisition planning tasks and making procurement decisions.

The figure below represents a sample ICAM PMO structure. An agency should design its ICAM PMO structure in a way that fosters communication, coordinates efforts, and appropriately aligns with the agency‘s overall organizational structure.