Space Rockets, Portfolio Management and a Dash of AI / PMO HotHouse May 2025

We’re a few sessions into Season 3 now, and the latest PMO HotHouse brought together some familiar faces and new ones alike. The session on 30th May took a wide sweep across the landscape – from the lessons tucked inside project failure, to what’s happening with portfolio management (and where it’s heading). Plus, of course, AI. Because it’s 2025 and it’s everywhere.

Here’s a look at what came up. Not a blow-by-blow account, but a collection of moments that stuck with me – and a few thoughts that might be useful to carry forward.

 

Full Session

PMO News

Starting with Failure (But in a Good Way)

We opened with the recent SpaceX rocket crash – which sounds dramatic, and well, it was. But the interesting bit wasn’t the crash itself. It was the language around it. They called it a “rapid unscheduled disassembly.” It’s clever, sure, but also more than that. It reframes the failure. It makes room for learning without dwelling too long on the mess.

There was a point made about how important it is to set expectations, especially in high-risk work. If something goes wrong, are we treating it like a scandal or a step in a process? That framing can shape everything. SpaceX didn’t hide from it. They made it part of the story. There’s something in that for PMOs, particularly those supporting innovation-heavy portfolios.

PMOs Are Growing Up (Again?)

We also talked about that 2025 State of the PMO report – the one suggesting PMOs are stabilising, finally shedding the “cost centre” label and being seen as value enablers. It’s not a new idea, but perhaps it’s finally landing.

There’s an interesting contradiction here though. Even as PMOs are becoming more valued, more “strategic,” there’s this quiet trend toward outsourcing. John mentioned it, almost in passing, but it raised questions. If the PMO is so critical, why are organisations so willing to contract it out?

Maybe it’s a sign of maturity. Or maybe it’s about cost control, pure and simple. Hard to say. But worth watching.

AI: More Real Than Hyped

The AI conversation – it’s everywhere right now, and that’s not surprising. But this session, it felt… a little more grounded. Less “future of work,” more “here’s what teams are actually trying.”

We heard that 36% of PMOs are using AI in some capacity, with 61% of high-performing PMOs doing so. That’s a stat you might quote in a business case, but it also hides a lot of ambiguity. What does “using AI” mean, exactly? Automating reporting? Generating dashboards? Or more sophisticated predictive modelling?

John shared a few examples – AI in construction, in story point estimation – and Eileen mentioned the Global Project Management Forum in Riyadh. Apparently, concerns about ethics, adoption, and resistance to AI are just as live there as they are here. Somehow comforting.

Resources Shared

Here are the resources and links that John shared during the news segment:

Reports and Articles:

1. State of the PMO 2025 Research Report
   “You can download the report here…”
   🔗 State of the PMO 2025
2. GAO 2025 Annual Report
   “Opportunities to Reduce Fragmentation, Overlap, and Duplication…”
   🔗 U.S. GAO 2025 Report (Reissued May 13, 2025)
3. Bridging Project Management and Design Thinking
   Evidence From Digital Transformation Projects
   🔗 ScienceDirect article – Bridging PM and Design Thinking
4. Global Project Management Forum
   “Next-Gen Project Management: The Power of People, Processes, and Technology”
   🔗 GPMF Riyadh Event Overview

AI-Related Resources:

1. Artificial Intelligence Practitioner Certification (AIP) – PMO Learning
   🔗 PMO Learning – AI Practitioner Course
2. AI Insights Series – Government Digital and Data
   🔗 Gov.uk AI Insights
3. ScienceDirect Article – Conversational AI in Construction
   “Assessment of complexities in implementation…”
   🔗 ScienceDirect: Conversational AI in Construction
4. Multimodal Generative AI for Story Point Estimation
   🔗 arXiv Preprint
5. House of PMO – AI Archives
   🔗 AI Articles Archive – House of PMO

 

Jargon Buster

During the session, Eileen took a really insightful deep dive into the different portfolio management frameworks in circulation right now. And let’s be honest – this is a topic that often gets either oversimplified or lost in jargon, so it was refreshing to have it laid out clearly and practically.

She compared four main approaches side-by-side:

1. Axelos’ Management of Portfolios (MoP) – introduced back in 2011, and still widely referenced.
2. PMI’s Standard for Portfolio Management – with its eight principles and six performance domains.
3. APM’s Portfolio Management guidance – which focuses on six core processes.
4. The new “Managing Portfolios” guide by Steve Jenner – which, as she explained, aims to modernise and consolidate knowledge into a more accessible, single-exam format.

What stood out in Eileen’s comparison was the way she highlighted the convergence in thinking across these models over the past decade. While the terminology still varies a little, the fundamentals are now much more aligned than they used to be. Strategy, value, centralised oversight, and governance – these themes run through all of them.

One particularly interesting insight was how the role of the PMO features differently in each. For example, while the earlier frameworks sometimes treated the PMO as an operational bolt-on, newer thinking – particularly in Steve’s guide – gives it more of a strategic partnership role, sometimes even rebranded as a Value Management Office.

She also touched on the shift toward principles-based guidance (reflecting wider trends in standards like PRINCE2 and PMI’s evolving direction). This shift gives organisations more flexibility to tailor practices to their own context, rather than follow a rigid methodology.

And although this section was quite technical, Eileen kept it grounded – noting that while frameworks are helpful, they can only take you so far. It’s not just about the processes, but how they’re applied in practice, in real organisations with real constraints.

In summary, it was a helpful reminder: there’s no one-size-fits-all solution, but understanding the available frameworks – and their evolution – gives PMOs a solid foundation to build a fit-for-purpose portfolio approach.

Hot Seat

We handed the spotlight to Steve Jenner, who joined us in the Hot Seat to talk about his latest work – a new guide to managing portfolios that aims to cut through the complexity and bring some much-needed clarity to the discipline.

Culture, Process and the Gaps in Between

Stephen talked about portfolio management in a way that felt refreshingly honest. Yes, processes matter. But culture and governance? That’s where the real complexity sits.

There was a great comment – something like, “It’s not about controlling everything, it’s about enabling the people who are accountable.” That stuck. It’s a subtle shift, but it reframes the PMO’s role. Less gatekeeper, more coach. Maybe.

Still, it’s easy to talk about balance between process and culture – harder to maintain it in practice. Most organisations lean too far one way or the other. Some never really course-correct.

And Finally, a Bit on the Future

We wrapped with a brief but rich discussion about where PMOs are going. Strategic focus, sustainability, AI – all the buzzwords were there. But this time they came with a layer of realism.

Stephen made a comment about the glossary in his book not including “PMO,” but the concept being there throughout. It’s telling, really. PMOs are everywhere and nowhere. They’re evolving, adapting, sometimes dissolving into the work itself.

The vision for the next 5–10 years? Agile, AI, and sustainability. Which sounds clean and neat. But how that plays out will vary massively depending on sector, leadership mindset, and even the PMO’s location in the organisation.

 

The thing about PMOs is – they reflect the organisation they sit in. If the culture’s open to learning, they thrive. If not, they become admin-heavy and brittle. What struck me in this session wasn’t just the content, but the tone. There was a quiet shift – more talk about enablement, about leadership, about value.

Maybe that’s where the PMO goes next. Or maybe we’re just getting better at describing what it’s always tried to do.

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