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The 5-Point PMO Setup Plan – Lessons from Aerogen
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We recently tuned into a PMI Ireland Chapter session to hear from Sean O’Reilly, PMO Director at Aerogen, as he shared insights on their PMO Award win.
Aerogen, a Galway-based medical device company, has been leading the way in acute care and aerosol drug delivery for 25 years. What started as a small business has grown into a global success story, with its flagship vibrating mesh nebulizer now a gold standard in respiratory care. And they’re not stopping there – the company is now expanding into the pharmaceutical sector.
With around 500 employees and a growing team of 20+ project management professionals, Aerogen’s PMO plays a crucial role in managing 50 strategic projects per year, along with continuous improvement, sustaining, and commercial projects. The focus is on portfolio enablement, resource planning, and project prioritisation, ensuring that the right projects get the right support to drive business success.
Their PMO was established in 2021, backed by strong senior leadership sponsorship. In this session, we heard about their 5-point plan for setting up a successful PMO—and since there’s no recording available, we’re sharing those key insights with you right here.
From the outset, Aerogen’s PMO took a benefits-led approach, focusing on business pain points, culture, and project management maturity before rolling out any structures. The aim? To align the PMO with strategic business needs, rather than burdening the organisation with unnecessary red tape.
Read on to discover how they did it—and what you can learn from their journey.
Aerogen’s PMO operates with a structured, value-driven approach, ensuring projects are selected, prioritised, and executed in alignment with business goals.
A scoring model was developed to assess projects based on financial return, risk, and strategic alignment, helping leadership make informed decisions. Projects are categorised into three key streams—strategic initiatives, continuous improvement/sustaining efforts, and commercial enablement—allowing for clear resource allocation and focus.
A tiered governance structure underpins this, with core team reviews, functional manager evaluations, and steering committee oversight, ensuring projects stay on track while escalating only critical issues to senior leadership. Additionally, resource planning and SME ring-fencing have been implemented to balance workloads and optimise delivery capabilities.
Beyond processes and governance, cultural and change management have been a priority for the PMO’s success.
Rather than enforcing rigid structures, the team spent time listening to stakeholders, identifying pain points, and securing early wins to demonstrate value. This approach helped position the PMO as an enabler, rather than a bureaucratic hurdle, building strong stakeholder engagement and buy-in across the business.
The PMO also worked to embed a culture of accountability and ownership, ensuring project teams remained proactive and results-focused. To drive ongoing improvements, Objectives & Key Results (OKRs) were introduced alongside traditional KPIs, strengthening performance tracking, lessons learned, and cross-functional knowledge sharing.
Looking ahead, the PMO is focused on scaling operations, enhancing governance, and deepening cross-functional integration across NPD, operations, IT, regulatory, and commercial teams.
As the business expands into new markets, strengthening risk management and forensic project metrics will be key to maintaining control while building innovation.
The key takeaway for other PMOs is that success lies in securing senior sponsorship, embedding structured yet flexible governance, and deeply understanding the organisational culture. By balancing rigor with adaptability, Aerogen’s PMO has positioned itself as a strategic asset, enabling smarter decision-making, efficient execution, and continuous business value delivery.
To summarise here’s an overview:
The 5-Point PMO Setup Plan
Based on the Aerogen PMO’s approach, here’s a 5-point plan for setting up a PMO in line with their experience:
1. Understand the Business & Gain Senior Sponsorship
- Engage with leadership to ensure alignment with strategic goals.
- Identify key pain points and opportunities by speaking with business units.
- Secure a strong sponsor at the leadership level who will advocate for the PMO.
Lesson from the Aerogen PMO:
The PMO was benefits-led and did not impose rigid frameworks, ensuring leadership saw its value early.
2. Define the PMO’s Role & Value Proposition
- Ensure the PMO is an enabler, not a bureaucratic blocker.
- Clarify the services and scope (e.g., portfolio management, governance, reporting).
- Address the “what’s in it for me” question for stakeholders.
Lesson from the Aerogen PMO:
They tailored their PMO to fit the culture and business needs rather than enforcing a generic model.
3. Build a Structured, Scalable Approach
- Establish project prioritisation criteria (e.g., financial return, strategic alignment).
- Categorise projects into strategic, continuous improvement, and commercial streams.
- Implement resource planning to avoid overloading key SMEs.
Lesson from the Aerogen PMO:
A structured selection process ensured leadership had a shared sense of value in project prioritisation.
4. Implement Strong Governance & Performance Tracking
- Set up tiered governance (core team, functional leads, steering committees).
- Ensure transparent reporting and tracking of benefits.
- Promote accountability and ownership at all levels.
Lesson from the Aerogen PMO:
Governance was designed to support decision-making, not slow it down. Escalation was only used when necessary.
5. Embed a Culture of Continuous Improvement
- Introduce OKRs alongside KPIs to drive long-term improvement.
- Regularly capture lessons learned and integrate them into future projects.
- Provide mentorship and training to raise PMO maturity.
Lesson from the Aerogen PMO:
They focused heavily on continuous learning, ensuring processes evolved with business needs.
This approach helped the Aerogen PMO become a strategic asset rather than just an administrative function and ultimately secured them the PMO of the Year Award for the PMI Ireland Chapter!
