The Digital Project Manager

The PMO’s Strategic Role in Digital Transformation

• Galen Low

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PMOs are at a crossroads. As AI-led transformation accelerates, many organizations are still treating PMOs as project police—while quietly expecting them to deliver strategic clarity, risk foresight, and business value. In this conversation, Galen sits down with Amireh Amirmazaheri to unpack why that disconnect exists, what PMOs need to unlearn to move forward, and how the role must evolve if it’s going to earn (and keep) a seat at the table.

They explore the real difference between managing projects and enabling business success, why AI won’t save broken processes, and what it takes to lead a PMO with purpose instead of power. The result is an honest, human-centered look at the future of PMOs—one that prioritizes judgment, ethics, and clarity over templates, tools, and false certainty.

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Galen Low:

Are there things that PMO leaders need to stop doing in order to succeed?

Amireh Amirmazaheri:

You are not about the projects. You are about the body of the business. You are not responsible of the success of the project. That responsibility is lying on the project manager and you are there just to enable it and empowering the project team to be able to deliver the right team. The PMO is a separate profession that needs its own skillset.

Galen Low:

Let's say a project manager being asked to set up a PMO or somebody who wants to move into PMO from project management, what is the best way for them to learn some of the skill sets and or advocate for having more support to set up a PMO?

Amireh Amirmazaheri:

You have to start from the beginning and you have to do a lot of de-learning to get yourself up through that  profession. So the entry level is not the same. In project management, you are leading with power, but in PMO you are leading with purpose.

Galen Low:

Are there any sort of new skill sets that you think that individuals should be focusing on if they are in this role now or if they're aspiring to be a PMO lead in the future?

Amireh Amirmazaheri:

Yeah, definitely for the PMO, the first thing is—

Galen Low:

Welcome to The Digital Project Manager podcast — the show that helps delivery leaders work smarter, deliver smoother, and lead with confidence in the age of AI. I'm Galen, and every week we dive into real world strategies, new tools, proven frameworks, and the occasional war story from the project front lines. Whether you're steering massive transformation projects, wrangling AI workflows, or just trying to keep the chaos under control, you're in the right place. Let's get into it. Okay, today we are talking about the role of the PMO within this era of AI-led digital transformation, and what the future of PMOs could look like in the next three to five years. With me today is Amireh Amirmazaheri, Founder and CEO of PM Solutions. Amireh is a deeply experienced consultant who has spent over two decades wearing many hats from technical specialist and business analyst to program manager and project management office specialist. Today, she helps enterprises implement, develop, and manage their EPMO systems and governance. Amireh, thank you so much for being with me here today.

Amireh Amirmazaheri:

Thank you, Galen. Thanks so much for having me today.

Galen Low:

I'm so glad we were able to sync up. We are worlds apart in a way. I'm in Toronto, Amireh's in Sydney, and we've been coordinating this for a while. I'm so excited to dive in. I've been like following you from afar for a while now. You are definitely an authority when it comes to PMOs and like a progressive way of thinking about it, like a very forward thinking POV. I've seen everything you've been posting. I've been following the events you've been speaking at and the organizations you've been helping. Yes, you're deeply passionate and honestly, I hope that this conversation goes to like all sorts of places, but just in case, here's the roadmap that I've sketched out for us today. So to start us off, I wanted to get just one big burning questions out of the way, like that hot question that everyone wants to know the answer to. But then I'd like to zoom out from that and talk about three things. Firstly, I wanted to talk about like the skillset of the modern PMO leader and how it's changing. Where aspiring PMO specialists should be looking to skill up, then I'd like to talk about how PMOs can shift their reputation in the growing wave of AI adoption. And then lastly, I'd like to zero in on the future of the AI-enabled PMO. What does it look like and what do we need to be careful about? How does that sound to you?

Amireh Amirmazaheri:

Fun. Let's start.

Galen Low:

Awesome. Let's get into it. I'm gonna start with just like one hot question, but I'm gonna take a running start at it. From what I see, your career has spanned the bulk of what many people have experienced as a wave of digital transformation. Like over the past two decades, businesses have digitized and automated core business processes have shifted from on-prem infrastructure to the cloud, have developed business intelligence systems that were like unthinkable in the early two thousands, and so on and so forth. Today we're at the start of the next wave of digital transformation, this time led by the potential of artificial intelligence. So I wanted to ask from a PMO perspective, what's different about this wave of AI led digital transformation than the previous eras of digital transformation? Or maybe just to put it another way, what's different about the role of the project management office today that wasn't the case, even just three to five years ago?

Amireh Amirmazaheri:

You know Galen, the thing is, if you just imagine PMO as a person, like as a human, like any proficient PMO like a human as well, is going through different stage of the life. In my imagination and based on what I am seeing, PMO is now in a young age, which now it's identified as identity. It is now showcasing that what is the purpose of this function or this person in the world, and what type of values this person or authority can add into the body of the business. So if you look at it and the whole world as a whole business, one business and a PMO as one function or as a person, this person is now in a age, in a young age, I could say in a later twenties, early thirties, that has a good information, a good muscle of mental and physical strength of proving its value and identity in the business. But it's still not that mature an experience in representing the strategic partnership within the business. Based on what we see in PMO Global Awards series, we can see the excellence are mainly now sitting at the strategy decision making level. We see that the PMOs are playing a real role of a third eye and a third hand of the business to showcase the business where they are going and what are the risks, and they can demonstrate the value that they're delivering. While in the other side, we can see, based on the stats that. The latest one was the farm PMO Squad 2024 stats that were saying 64% of the PMOs are still not able to demonstrate their value they are delivering. So as you can see, the different journey that the PMOs are moving within that body of the business is really depends on the economy within like that geographic that the business existed. The culture, the risk appetite and the change appetite of that culture as well. So to wrap it up, I can see that this person has now learned its own knowledge. It is graduated from a university, so now landed all those standards and then like all of those. Expertise and the knowledge that needs to set up the foundation of it. But when it gets into the practicality, it is unaware of to be a real strategy partner of the business. I've met several PMO professionals that now are sitting at the executive chairs, but also on the other side. I met lots of PMOs. That are still thinking that there are the project support function and sitting within the project rather than sitting at the business level.

Galen Low:

I really love that. I think that's really beautiful. Thinking about a PMO, like as a person and not like a fully mature person. And I, you know, in my head I'm like, yeah, exactly. That moment where, you know, I didn't really feel like I understood my purpose and who I really was until into my thirties. I wasn't even thinking about it that way. I was kind of thinking about it as, you know, PMOs facing a new challenge from the same place they were before. AI is coming along and you know, it's in some ways the same and in some ways it's different, but I love the idea that it's like, what's different is that the PMO. Older now than it was in previous digital transformation, my previous waves of digital transformation, and almost is at the precipice of either having a seat at the table or might already have a seat at the table and are just figuring out how they can be that third hand, that other influence to drive strategic value. I haven't thought of, put it that way. And that's maybe what makes the role of the PMO different today. Not that it like AI is changing things necessarily, but that. It is more mature now. It is seen as more mature and more and more businesses are accepting the fact that it's not, you know, the administrative policing, governing body, slapping people's hands and enforcing process, but actually is a business partner, you know, within an organization driving strategic value and thinking about it in terms of like business goals.

Amireh Amirmazaheri:

Yeah. You know, and then the thing is, Galen, still we have a lot of organizations or a lot of businesses that they still don't know what the PMO is, and we still have lots of thinking that the PMO, is the PMO project control function, or is it a PMO reporting function? Or is the PMO an assurance function? So it's still carrying out its elephant in the room concept as a nature of the PMO, by the way. But when you dive into the digital transformation program, I can see that the PMOs are not really valued or haven't had that much stage to be part of the body of the digital transformation programs. And then on the other side, we can see that in so many organization and they are not limited to one or two, I can't say the most majority, that the PMO is sitting outside of the body of the digital transformation program. And they hear about that something like a transformation is happening along the way when the program is at the end of the delivery, at the value stage of its life. You know, it's very sad. While if the PMO is sitting as a strategy partner of the business and if the digital transformation is part of the strategic objective of the business, so PMO must be aware. When it's happening and not be the subject of the change that transformation bringing into the picture, it should be actually the arm of the business that is enabling this transformation. I wrote several articles about the PMO as a pilot for the digital transformation, and in all of them, I'm just saying like the PMO must be a body that has a VIP service to the CIO. Or the main sponsor of the digital transformation program. So if you are sitting at the EPMO level or at the PMO level within the business, and you are the strategy partner of the business, and you are aware of that digital transformation is happening, you need to step up and define and design a specific PMO. It's kind of like a valet service for that specific digital transformation program. Because that transformation program is touching all parts of the business every in and out of the business, and you are the best function that can enable and mitigate the risk of the success of that program. Which unfortunately we do not see that in so many organization, and the organization are just thinking of like, oh, we have a transformation program. We wanna have the AI adoption, and then you're just looking at that little box of the technicality and the technology layer. Nobody's looking at who is sitting at the program level, who is steering that, who is managing this program? Who is defining the projects within it? Where is the blueprint of this specific program? So along the way, we get to the point that we don't know what are the risks and where we are in terms of managing the risk of that program. We get to the point that we don't know how many resources and when we need them to come and go in that program. We don't know how much we are impacting the operational function in the business as well, so. That's a big gap, and we see that this young function still hasn't find itself according to the digital transformation programs, which I don't like to say it, but that's a reality.

Galen Low:

No, and it makes some sense. I think it ties back to what you said earlier, you know, in a sense that in some ways, PMOs need to decide their purpose. And I've always kind like in previous conversations, I framed it as branding, but it's a bit more than that actually. It's not just deciding what you're about and then messaging that out to the world so that they don't make assumptions about you and what you do. But it's also to your point, designing it in such a way that it is a valuable service for the business. And not necessarily just being like, this is who we are, but we're strategic. Trust us. You know, it's actually being intentional about designing and messaging what the value is of bringing in the PMO earlier in strategic planning so that it can play the role of strategic execution, not just execution. I mean, that's semantics, but arguably I think it's different. I think what you're saying is, hey, we've planned out all the things for our digital transformation, go, and the PMO was like, wait a minute. We don't have enough information. We haven't planned. How do you know that this is all gonna go well? We all see the headlines about all the AI projects, you know, statistically being considered failures, at least in the headlines. And then, you know, the way you're presenting it. I'm like, oh yeah, like this'll fill the other gap, which is. Everyone's AI transformation, not necessarily going as planned sometimes because there isn't somebody looking at it from that 50,000 foot view resourcing risk process exact ownership.

Amireh Amirmazaheri:

But do we have a plan for it? What are the criteria for measuring the success? Because how do you see, and how do you say that program is successful or is in failure? Because we see that like, eh, 70% of the digital transformation programs are failing. Okay, but what does that mean? It means that they are not returning. The investment that they actually had, or they are not meeting the benefits or the value, they promised that they're gonna deliver. And in so many cases we can see that the digital transformation programs are getting stopped. Which I can say in so many scenarios that the business is getting to the point of like, Hey, this program is just expenditure in a business. When we are gonna see the light Yeah, at the end of this tunnel, you know it's happening. We can see that there is a huge amount of investment on a digital transformation. Now we are hearing a lot about AI adoption. So many organizations are very excited about it, but I dunno if you read the McKenzie report recently, the majority are not looking at it as a long term. Like they are very excited to jump on it. They start building it and then implementing it, but they're like a extension or they're repeating it. It's still unclear. On the other side, we can see that the human is now getting victim of its own mess. You know, at the end of the day, all of this AI adoption and everything is based on the algorithm and the data that you have. How many business you have found that they have clean data? How many business you have found that they have clear algorithm? You know, it's a lot of aspects to have a look at it. It is scary, but on the other side is exciting to know that okay, there is a lot of room for it exploring and learning about it.

Galen Low:

It looks so simple on the surface, especially the way that like generative AI has been presented to us as LLMs. You just type stuff in and magic happens. And so taking your tunnel analogy. Sometimes businesses think that the tunnel is short. Yes. Right? It's like quick wins. We're experimenting and it's gonna work. It's gonna be just like me planning my vacation using ChatGPT, let's go. And then they get to that point. We're like, wait, we're still in the tunnel. Oh, we have to go backwards in the tunnel to make sure that we have a governance framework and that you know, our data is clean and that we have tailored models for our business. That we thought about privacy and that sort of messy feeling when a business is like, yeah, we're just bleeding money right now. Like, we have to stop this. Exactly. Whereas actually it's a longer play. We just hadn't planned it as a longer play, and not every organization thinks of it as a longer play. It looks like something that's gonna get instant gratification, but done right. Like all transformation and especially digital transformation. It's a journey. Very specifically, we call it journey to cloud. Not like hop, skip and a jump to the cloud, right? Like it's actually, it takes a lot, there's a lot to it and it's almost that sort of cognitive disconnect of this should be easy. We'll loop in the EPMO later and we'll see results within the year. It actually needs a bit of reframing and needs actually that PMO to play that role to be like, Hey, I'm the additional hand here guiding the business in terms of its strategy and we need to map this out. Otherwise it's not going to work.

Amireh Amirmazaheri:

You know, before we start this, I told you I prefer to be real, right? Yeah. And you can see that I don't have makeup, but I like to be natural and then like very real. This is something that the PMO must be. The role of the PMO is to show the ugly truth to the business and show them that if you go through this path, this is the end of it. You know, it's not about like that is a place that the PMO can demonstrate its value. And then, yeah, I was in a podcast with Fatima Bucci and she asked me like, oh, we're talking about a value and everything, but what is this value? And then AOL and I just brought an example to say like, Hey, you go to gp. And you are in pain and they are asking you the scale of your pain from one to 10, and you're saying, oh, it's eight. And they give you something and they're asking you, okay, what is your pain now? And you're saying four. So the value that medication brought to you is 50% reduction of the pain. And that's simple. You know, the thing is defining the value is part of the job of the PMO itself. Not making it so complicated, but also understanding what exactly they are doing, what risk they are mitigating. And then we are going into the digital transformation program. There are a lot of information. About digital transformation program already, but you can't bring a lot of scenarios to do the study for your business. Recently we got involving a digital transformation program to evaluate a PMO. And we just came in with the scenarios to say, Hey, this is your program, you're budgeting$200 million for the program, and these are the risks that your business is identify and talking about it that you might lose one of the biggest revenue channels in the business. So in the case of two, not happy scenario that they stop the program or you fail. These are the damage that you're bringing to your business. And as I said, I wanna be real. Bringing a PMO itself is not gonna make you like it's not a fairy land, right? The PMO doesn't have a magic wand. He said, Bing, now you're successful. But at least the PMO can say, if you bring me through your journey in any specific time of the life of your program. I can save you 40%, right? Because we know at the end of the day, the probability of the failure is 70% for the digital transformation program in each phase that the program is moving like a ity of study and readiness. When it gets to the delivery, when it gets to the mobilization, when it gets to the value, and when it gets to the closure. It really depends on when you are bringing PMO within the journey. When the PMO is involved within the journey with the right capability, how much that PMO can reduce the risk of the failure. And if you can have that language. With the business to say, Hey, I'm not gonna bo the ocean for you. I am gonna be real with you. To say like this sheep, it's moving, has a probability of failure of 70%. And in that case, you are gonna lose that amount of money. You're gonna lose that amount of reputation, whatever is important for the business. And then recognizing that when this function can add the most value is important. Alongside of that, that PMO also must have a specific and a specialized capability to be able to run that function for a digital transformation program. If you are running an EPMO within that business and that business is actually running a digital transformation program. That PMO is not able to adjust itself for that program. Yes, they should have a PMO for that specific program to run it, and that PMO must be aligned with the EPMO or the PMO within the organization. But this PMO that is sitting in that program must have a specified capability like must understand what is a customer centric design club. Must understand how you are managing the resources between the business and operation and the transformation program. Must understand what are the failure area vendor is joining, how you are gonna manage the vendor. What sort of governance needs to be in place to make sure that your render is actually delivering what they need to deliver instead of destroying the resource, the structure of the business, right? It is very important and we can see that lots of the digital transformation program specifically for SI vendors are going to the dispute and the claims and all of those things. When it gets to the end of the delivery, which is very sad.

Galen Low:

I agree. I wonder if we can go there, because you know what I'm picking you up on here is the skillset of the individuals, the PMO leaders, the folks who are responsible. You know, we're talking about capabilities. Earlier, we were talking about the ability to define and communicate value, and also, you know, defining and communicating risk. Arguably, some of these skills and capabilities are things that a PMO leader should have had anyways. Are there any sort of new skill sets that you think that individuals should be focusing on if they are in this role now or if they're aspiring to be a PMO lead in the future?

Amireh Amirmazaheri:

Yeah, definitely like the main thing I would like to add to this, not only specifically for the PMO, but I emphasize that for the PMO. The first thing is be able to learn fast and also to be able to de-learn fast. Because the way that we are moving forward is we need to understand that the thing that I'm learning to them might not be available in the next two days. Two days, right? So it's very important that we understand and we are adoptable in terms of our learning. We are able to make a decision quickly and lead quickly. So one of the things that normally are hidden in terms of the PMO skillset is the leadership, because the PMO is the function that never ever gets the credit of the taxes. So you need to understand that if the business is successful, nobody's coming and saying thank you to you. Right. But if they are failing and say, ah, this P doesn't work, right? So this is a norm of this profession. You need to accept that. So the leadership is very important because the DNA of the leadership is not credit for the leader, and the true leader is not one that is sitting there and then waiting for a thank you or recognition is the one that is enjoying the success as a whole body. For me, when I am working with the client and I see that the client is repeating what I said, or they are actually taking the shift away that we try to take them there. This is for me, yes, I made it happen, and that's a sacrificing feeling. And then I give all of that credits to them because they are actually doing that. Right. So for the PM leaders, I do recommend to learn how to learn fast, how to make a decision fast, and also how to lead. It's these three elements, it's very important. And then as you know, it's not very new. Always said that like every single role for the future must be technology savvy, so you need to be able to see patterns. You need to be able to play with the numbers. You need to be able to visualize the things, to communicate the things. And then as long as now we are moving forward of bringing a new technology in, like AI agents, all of robots coming out like look at your house. If you find a robot that can work on cleaning the walls, my robot set in terms of the house cleaning is now complete, right? I just need a person, a robot, to clean the windows, which I existed. I know that's true, but not for the big towers. I just needed for one house. Walking around and then cleaning the things on the mirrors and there like walls and everything. So like look around yourself, like you have a lot of digital workers around you, even in your house. So it's very important for us to be digital savvy, to have that brain of seeing your patterns, understanding the connections, seeing the logic, defining the floor, and being consistent. Because the data mass is coming when we are losing the consistency.

Galen Low:

That's fair. I actually really like that. The two things that I think are really nice inflections, because to your point right, some of this is not new. Obviously digital transformation's been happening a while. Being tech savvy is something that's going to be expected of folks in a PML role. But I like the quickness and I like the thanklessness of it.'Cause I think both are really salient, the speed at which even AI as a technology is changing and the speed at which businesses are trying to keep up. That quickness of learning and the quick decision making, I think that's really apt. It's not just decision making and learning, it's quick learning, quick decision making, because it's all happening and unfolding in real time, and no one necessarily is going to be the expert at new change. It's gonna be about looking at patterns, understanding the implications and the risks, and like being decisive. And then planning the next step after that. And I think that's really important to kind of call out. And then the thanklessness, I never really thought about it. I'm calling it Thanklessness because that's how we'd normally describe it. Like, you know, the classic PMO memes, you know, you never get credit, but you always get the blame. But I like the way you explained it. It's a mindset of, it's almost some more like parental leadership, right? It's a quiet leadership of, you know.

Amireh Amirmazaheri:

Servant.

Galen Low:

Yeah, exactly. It's very much servant leadership and it's AI and transformation. So a lot of people are gonna wanna wave the flag and take credit. That might be okay because the impact is there. And even if that's not something that is directed at you, you know, as a PMO leader or you know, someone working within the PMO. It's still the job getting done. And actually that's the impact and that's where the joy comes from. Not waiting for a pat on the back, which I think is a very interesting mindset and a spin in my opinion, on like the no one's ever gonna thank me, yuck. It's like no one's ever gonna thank me and that's the point. I think it's really interesting.

Amireh Amirmazaheri:

If you are waiting for that, thank you. It's just dragging. That's exactly coming back to where you see the value you are adding, you know, if you are seeing the value of how many thanks you are getting or how many well done you are hearing.

Galen Low:

Yeah. Vanity metric to the extreme.

Amireh Amirmazaheri:

Exactly.

Galen Low:

You said something earlier I wanted to come back to. You said there's things we need to unlearn and it triggered something in my head in previous conversations like I think PMOs still, and for a while have not had the best reputation. And I think it is for all sorts of reasons. But there are going to be behaviors and mindsets and practices that might hold us back. And when you said unlearn, that's kind of where I went. Like, are there things that PMO leaders need to stop doing and like to unlearn and unwind in order to succeed within AI transformation or digital transformation, like in that AI context? Like has it changed so much that continuing to do the same things like the way we did'em before is actually like the obstacle and if so, yeah. What are some examples?

Amireh Amirmazaheri:

A very simple example I'm can say is when this body, this person was young, this person was always talking about the project status. This project is at risk. This project is not working. These are the changes and these are the issues everything was in within the body of the project. The PMOs must unlearn that. I learn how to talk about that project in executive language, how they have to look at the project within the body of the business and bring it to the point that this project is gonna damage our reputation. This project, the way it's going is impacting our digital transformation program or this vendor is bringing an opportunity for us to bring that type of resources in or this type of talents in. So that's a big bottom of our learning is like you are not about the projects, you are about the body of the business. You are not responsible of the success of the project. That responsibility is lying on the project manager and you are there just to enable it. And empowering the project team to be able to deliver the right team. It's not your job to do their job, but your job is to make sure that your business is successful. That's one of those main thing that the PMOs must unlearn. To the point that you made that the PMOs don't have a reputation, I agree with you. I've been a victim of that several times in Australia. So many organization actually don't like to have a function as a pmo. They are happy to name it whatever, but not the PMO. And it's very interesting that I still insisted to name my business as PMO Solutions, right? But the fact is, who cares about the name? The main thing is, do you have a function in your business that enable your team to be successful, that enable your business to achieve its objectives, and is also there to provide you visibility of where the business is going as a whole body and where are the risks? So if you do not have this function, which in purpose, the name is PMO, but you do not want to name that as that PMO, that function must be existed. Like call it whatever. Call it elephant, call it, I don't know, a watch. But to have this function, it was interesting. I had a survey in my LinkedIn page and I ask people, if I come to you and say, I have a personal trainer and I have a coach, what do you think about me? What is coming to your mind like this? Are you thinking that I am leaving a luxury time? I have a lot of time. I'm a smart girl, or I have a lot of money. And then it's interesting that the majority said, I think you are smart because you don't wanna repeat. You wanna know what are the other options, and you believe that one person cannot know everything. So why we are not applying this to the business? I dunno. Like why we are refusing, why we are resisting on this.

Galen Low:

I agree so much.

Amireh Amirmazaheri:

You know? And then on the other side I can see that the business is moving and they come to the au. We need to have a PMO. Okay? Who can be a PMO? We are gonna recruit internally. You project manager, you don't have anything to manage, you know, you just come and set up a PMO. Hey, you are setting up that person for failure. Right? This is a profession that it needs its own skillset. And if you see in a profile of a person that person is telling you, I am a project manager, I'm a good project control person. I'm a PMO as well, I'm a risk manager. Just think about it. Like how in earth a person can be everything, and you are trusting that. You know, I have a YouTube video talking about good, bad, and ugly. And talking about this, that this is damaging the PMO profession. Yeah, which in all of us, in PMO Global Alliance alongside America Laura pmo, Jo, and all of us are trying to change this mentality and bringing it to the picture that the PMO is a separate profession that needs its own skillset.

Galen Low:

Hey, I love that sort of collective, you know, it's like this sort of PMO collective rising the tide for all the boats. So thank you for that. I see you. And also I think that's really interesting. It's a story I've heard so many times where, you know, someone like nonchalantly in my community will be like, oh, I've been asked to set up our PMO. You know, and it comes from that perspective from usually leadership within that organization that's like, yeah, you're good at projects. Like why don't you set up a PMO? Same thing. Right? But I think the way you explained it is so important as a success enabler. Even when I look at my own organization, you know, we have a lot of projects on the go at any given time. We don't really necessarily even have like formal PM functions. You know where I'm at and we see all of these collisions. That are avoidable from a certain perspective, but when you're on the ground, you don't see 'em. You don't see this project crashing into this other one or resource and risk at the business level. But even just to kind of bring it down to like the practicality of it, like if someone is, let's say a project manager being asked to set up a PMO or somebody who wants to, you know, move into PMO from project management, like what is the best way for them to learn some of the skill sets and or advocate for having more support to set up a PMO rather than assuming they have all the skills already and assuming that they can do it all by themselves.

Amireh Amirmazaheri:

Yeah. This is going back to that de-learning. So you need to press lots of buttons. Depends on which angle you are stepping into this room for that elephant, right? Like I'm not born as a PMO person, but my bachelor degree is in Harvard, computer engineer. My master's degree is in IT. Designing the business system, enterprise systems, and I have another master degree in the business administration, still going. But what I'm trying to say is going back, the journey getting into the PMO space, you can come to this space from different angles, but accepting that if you are in a very expert project manager and you wanna move your area to a PMO space, you have to start from the beginning and you have to do a lot of de learning to get yourself up through that proficient. So the entry level is not the same. So if you are a senior project manager, you're running billion dollars projects, which is a huge responsibility. Getting into the PMO space doesn't mean that you are to be great EPMO manager. There are cases that are, but I'm just talking as a general fact. So there are a lots of de-learning in it. The first de-learning is it's not your job to deliver a project. It's your job to success the business. And you got like the mindset that you had as a project manager before that. I have to be like, everything should be on time. The coordination between the team that is not working in a PMO space, right? So it's very important to understand and accept it because you are moving this stage to another stage. The other bit of it is like even the style of the leadership as a project manager is different from the PMR. In project management, you are leading with power. But in PMO, you are leading with purpose. So these are so much different, right? You can recruit and fire a person who is not delivering in a project team, but when you are in A PMO, you cannot recruit or fire a person who is not following your process. That's a reality. So that's a different style of the leadership that you need to accept when you are moving to the PM space. In terms of the authority level here, you in a project you are author, have an authority to approve the reject. In the PMO space, you have the authority to advise and lead and then get into the like a setting it up to get the approval. You are not the person who is saying, we are going this way for the marketing strategy. You are saying there to say our marketing strategy is not taking us to deliver that amount of project. If you want to go to the new market, you must be able to read the marketing strategy. But if you are delivering a project you don't care about, what is that? So the business acumen is different. The authority levels is different, the leadership style is different, and also the way that you are committed into delivering the value is different as well. Unfortunately, we don't see that. We see that like, oh, A PMO is coming to create templates, create, I know, design the project management framework da, but we are not looking at it. Okay, this project management framework, what's the point of it? Right. So these are the main things that we need to learn. For me, coming from the technology side gave me a gift of having a tech brain, right? So I'm very quick in learning technology and I'm very quick in de learning technology. So finding out, connecting the functions into the tech and putting the things together and thinking algorithm make way is my strength, right? But I'm inheriting it from the tech. Brain, but on the other side, I know in tech you are dealing with a right or wrong, right? If you press this button, it gets turned off or turned on. But in PMO, there is no right or wrong thing. Something that is right is working for one business, and maybe that is not really working for the other business.

Galen Low:

So interesting. It was such a good breakdown. Just the difference of mindset. I think a lot of the time, you know? Yeah. We think of it as a, you know, a ladder or a pipe. You can just make a lateral move from being a senior PM to being, you know, a PMO. Actually, you've got to climb back down the ladder. Like the unlearning. Yeah. And then climb back up the other side. You know, not gonna take as long necessarily, but it is a whole different thing. It's a whole different role.

Amireh Amirmazaheri:

Very different. And the speed of it depends on your acceptance, not the adoption of your environment. It is within you, right? Yes. How much you're accepting that mindset is not working in PMO space or another way around? I don't want to be a project manager, honestly, Galen. Because I don't have that, like the DNA of it, you know? And I'm not worried about to say it.

Galen Low:

Yeah, no, and I think that's fair. I think that's really interesting, right? Like even what you said earlier, being responsible for delivery is not the same as enabling success, different leadership style, different power dynamics, different politic, different role. And that's often what everyone in that whole ecosystem gets wrong about the PMO. And why it's misunderstood now is its chance to kind of, you know, mature into like that strategic capacity, whether it's called a PMO or not.

Amireh Amirmazaheri:

Yeah, exactly.

Galen Low:

For my listeners. Yeah, we don't expect you all to get several master's degrees and an MBA, but I do like that balance and what you said about this sort of engineering mind and tech savviness balance against the business. Like you do need to strive to understand both. If you're going to lead in that way, an organizational transformation, a digital transformation, its business, its technology, its people, and having that mix and the ability to learn fast and unlearn fast is really what's going to make it work for you. I wonder if we could talk a bit about the future. We've been talking a bit about the PMOs role within transformation, but you know, in my community of project managers, we're talking a lot about, you know, agentic project management, having AI agents that are, you know, helping with the project management. We're talking about what parts of our jobs it might replace and how we're gonna be interacting with like autonomous decision-making AI in our day-to-day lives. When we take that to the PMO level, like how do you envision AI being used within A PMO and what do we need to do to like set our people up for success within a AI-enhanced, you know, PMO context?

Amireh Amirmazaheri:

It's in my head, like Galen. It's very interesting because I'm reading different articles, different books, and like I'm connecting the things. I'm looking at the live my own journey going forward. But I want to bring some example when we are talking about agentic. I was in a world business forum and then a few sales lady was talking about like, yeah, we are thinking about. Who is managing the AI agents and the workforce and how it's gonna be. And at the end of the day, the human is not gonna die. We're gonna be there. And then I was reading the McKenzie AI report for 2024, and I'm seeing like, oh, the businesses are now taking a big strike of applying AI and bringing AI into their business with them. And in a Australian Financial Review, Optus was talking about like, we are partnering with Accenture for like a long program to reduce the workforce and Commonwealth Bank is talking about that we are gonna be like to third of the staff, the workforce in the future. I was thinking like, okay, what is happening to the human? Like, hey, and reading the book from James Barrett about the end of human era that is talking about like, oh, the agents are gonna take over all of like a most of the things and are you ready for it? And then reading the book from the 21 Lessons for 21st Century from Harari. It's saying like, oh yeah, human is taking its mess with itself. Like we are producing a lot of data that are not reasonable, and bringing the digitalization on top of that mess is gonna create a lot of complexity. And then I went through a very not fun or happy story of my beautiful car, had an accident and it was parked in the street and I started dealing with insurance. And the insurance name is NRMA in Australia, which is actually a very big company making the story short. There are a lot of terms and condition in the insurance thing, and I'm a 20 years customer of NRMA without a single claim, right? And this time, even for this story, it wasn't my fault. And I got to the point of like, Hey, I have an insurance, right? I want, just want my life to go back to our before the collision. And then they started treat me like I'm a pen, not a human. And I was like, wait a minute. You are my insurance. I paid you and you are going everywhere saying we care about our customers. But what you're doing, you are actually executing the terms of the contract that I paid for it. The decision that you are making is impacting a life of a person. Such a big impact. Right now I'm a business owner. The car was a business car and they had the term in their contract. I'm seeing for replacing the car and I'm actually meeting all of the two terms. The third term is the accident must happen within the 24 months of your registration, and the accident happened in the 20th of September, and my 24 months registration is ending 5th of September, so I'm only two weeks away of that term. And then when I'm explaining to them that such a hassle, this is gonna bring to my life. They don't care. They're saying care. This is a term of the contract and that's it. Right? And I was thinking of like, look at that. I'm now in a position that I'm standing up and I'm defending myself against my insurance, that I paid for it for 20 years. And what is gonna happen? This is what human is doing to human. This is the process that we are setting up that the human is doing to human. And all of the discussion that we are hearing about AI agents and everything we are saying, the value of the human is empathy. The value of the human is ethic. The value of the human is the social interaction and everything. But wait a minute, look what our process is. And our terms doing to the human to human. Do we think that by defining all of these AI ethics and blah blah, we fix this? Right. And then my insurance is telling me like, oh, the hardship is different from one person to the other person. And I asked them like, are you really waiting for me to die or having a heart attack to understand what hardships you are bringing to me? And I was thinking like, if this one was an agent, how it would be. And then I started talking about that and one person told me like, maybe it would be better. Because that AI agent is not only looking at it to one point, it's looking at it with more information to say, okay, this is a person, this person, like for example, has 10,000 followers. This person has a voice in international level, or this person this, maybe that would be better. You know? So to make it short is from my point of view, AI is bringing a lot of values to our life if we believe that we are bringing values to our life right now. So if you are defining a process, if you are in a position of defining a process or running a contract or doing whatever, and you are not thinking about the human factor within that. You are not looking at it from the other perspective, from a human to human perspective. I'm sorry, saying that, but as shit. It's gonna be in the future, right? You cannot expect that. But when we are setting up a process, when we're, I dunno, in a very simple way, in a PMO, like you are there to enable your project to be delivered successfully. You are bringing a PPM tool if you're not thinking about the users who are the everyday user of that tool and what makes them frustrated of using that tool. So come on, ask your GPT. It's gonna tell you what to do, right? So that's a thing, like we need to be realistic of what we are doing right now from a human to human. Rather than just going with the BS and the fluff to say, oh, next year this is gonna be like that. And then at the end, us as A PMO, we are working with the human element a lot. The human element in our function is a very strong element. And if we don't know how to deal with it, if he dunno how to think bespoke. The people that we are working with, how to communicate with them, how to read them. What can I say? Like the AI agent is algorithm based, right? And it's wanna do whatever I'm saying.

Galen Low:

I think that's so interesting, that point that an AI agent will process information much more quickly than we will if asked to. It will go and evaluate the human as an individual and can. There's so much compromise built into our processes as humans, because we're like. I couldn't go and investigate, you know, and learn about everyone who calls about the car accident they had. But then if we're not sort of living what our human superpowers are, empathy, you know, and like all this nuance and then we're not training our agents to do that either, and then it won't do it, so.

Amireh Amirmazaheri:

Yeah, exactly. Like Harari is saying that in his book, the data is the power. And then Bill Gates put a comment on the book to say like, no Harari. Data is not the power. The power is lying down on how you are using that data. That's a power. So generating power data is easy. The main thing is how we are thinking and putting together the different elements to tell other story and setting up that algorithm is gonna make it or break it in the age of agents, right? If you already have a team that they cannot communicate with each other, if you have a team that there is not a right merit and ethic within it. When you are having a mix of agent and people to manage, how are you gonna manage that? If you're a leader that you cannot manage a human in the right way, how are you gonna influence an algorithm? These are my question. I don't know if I have an answer for it, but I'm thinking on the other side. Like when I was migrating to Australia, my main thinking was, if I can be successful in my country, I can be successful in Australia. If I'm a shitty person in here, I'm gonna be another copy of that shit in another country. Right? So that's a thing. Like now looking at it, we couldn't manage the social interaction. We got to the trap of the social media and now we are talking about how we are gonna manage the impact on the risk of the social media and we are now banning it for our kids. What happened in Bondi in Australia? The guy was a very quiet person. He was not any member of any community, but he was active in Facebook and who could influence him to eat that brain to do such a thing? So if you're not fixing it at the human level, guys, we are losers.

Galen Low:

Fix the human first before we scale it into agents.

Amireh Amirmazaheri:

Exactly.

Galen Low:

I think that's fair. Just to kind of round out here, I think I remember you telling me that you were building some AI tools for PMOs..

Amireh Amirmazaheri:

Ethical one.

Galen Low:

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, to sort of deepen that. You know, I know that anything that you work on will live the values that you believe in, right? That's, we do need to start with the human nuance and not just like automate things that are already broken. Are you allowed to talk about some of the things that you've been working on?

Amireh Amirmazaheri:

Yeah, absolutely. The story of PMO Intelligence solution, like they call it PM oes, started long time ago before open AI coming to the picture. Oh, okay. So that's why we had to pivot a lot in terms of our technology. And the problem that we were trying to solve is the concept of consulting and advising. So our main goal was to empower the businesses to see, to think strategically specifically for their PMO function in a sort of getting involved into the firefighting action, giving a power or tool to the PMOs to think this strategically. And also mitigating the risk of outdated advice. Like I'm a consultant, I'm going to a company, I'm advising them a glory floor roadmap. But that roadmap, they see it and they say, thank you. They pay me and I'm going out. God knows when they're gonna implement it, and then even the time that they're going to implement it, they're going just like wipe up the dust on it and say, oh, this is our data. Oh, it doesn't work really Now. So it's a waste of money. It's a waste of time, and I didn't add any value as well. So I prefer to spend my time on the things that is bringing ROI and not because of anyone else, because of myself, because I want to be purposeful, right? I want to have. So it came up as an adaptive roadmap. What if we have a roadmap or the advice or recommendation that is evolving itself with the business evolution? And that was the idea. Then I shared that idea as a, like, I called sponsorship from tech ready woman new South Tech Ready Woman that they helped me a lot and shape it. And then we got to the point of development and then open AI came to the picture and said, oh my God, that is gonna be different. And then I started doing a lot of research and exploration and now we are landing of designing agent PMO interface that those agents are doing those repeatable work. Like helping you to understand your maturity, helping you to know what is the current estate, what should be the to be estate, and what is the roadmap. And also that roadmap is adaptive and it's changing itself with the business changes. And we have done the proof of concept already. So we already have a factory of patent designed to do that. But like now we are trying to find some funding to implement the whole.

Galen Low:

I love that idea. It, you know, it solves so many problems, especially the consulting conundrum. Like I can completely relate to that on both sides. You know, being someone who has consulted and given folks a roadmap or a plan, not knowing when they're gonna implement it, and also being on the receiving end where we're like. Cool. That was great work. That consultant did. We're not ready to do it yet. Oh, now we're ready. Oh, wait. It doesn't apply. I guess we'll just throw it in the bin. I like the idea of it being adaptive, intelligent and leveraging the capability of ai. Again, in a way that is human first, right? That is not trying to replace a thing, it's just actually solving the problem, which is that sometimes timing is not something that you control, but it doesn't mean that the value should just be thrown away.

Amireh Amirmazaheri:

Yeah, and you know, the thing is I really love working with America Pinto in PMO Global Alliance, one of the main thing is we try a lot to do, and it is his vision is to create a platform that people can learn from each other. And P OES is actually the place for the PMOs to learn and set up, get recommendation. And benchmarking their own PMO with the like industry, with the like business structure. So yeah, that's the aim to bring that into the picture. And as I said, we have done the proof of concept. Now we are in a edge of like a detailed design and the development, but the main the behind of that are the human and, not a person who removed the human from the loop. And I would like, and always, unlike NRMA, I think about the impact of what you are saying. Like I think it's a very natural in me, but in any of the advisory roles I have. I came up sometimes as a person who is defending project managers against the business, I say like, oh, you are asking too much. You even don't know what you want. And then they'll say like, Hey, you are our party. Not like, but they have to make it happen for you. And if you don't think about how much hustle you are bringing into their table, into their routine, they're not gonna do it for you. Or even if they do it, that's not reliable. So yeah, no. That thing is like a human first is very important and it's not just a buzzword or something that I make it pretty. It should be real.

Galen Low:

I'll definitely want to have you back as you get further down that path of PMO is, I think it sounds super cool. I love the problem it solves and I just think it's funny what you said. Enabling success, you know, in the spirit of A PMO sometimes means just you're not taking sides or representing one party, you're representing success and whatever unlocks that. That is where you can stick your nose in and have those hard conversations.

Amireh Amirmazaheri:

When a human is in the picture, there is no black and white. There is no right and wrong. There is a lot of elements around that, so we need to not to forget this.

Galen Low:

Love that. Amireh, thanks so much for being on the show with me today. I really enjoyed our conversation. We talked about a lot of things. I will try and like grab down links and put them into show notes or some of the books that you mentioned, but for folks who wanna learn more about you and follow what you're up to where can they go? My main go to place is LinkedIn. I am a lot in LinkedIn, but by the way, if you Google my name, there is no other Amireh Amirmazaheri whole world. I've, I have that privilege. I will add your LinkedIn profile to the show notes as well for folks who wanna follow you. And thanks again so much.

Amireh Amirmazaheri:

Thanks for having me.

Galen Low:

That's it for today's episode of The Digital Project Manager podcast. If you enjoyed this conversation, make sure to subscribe wherever you're listening. And if you want even more tactical insights, case studies and playbooks, head on over to thedigitalprojectmanager.com. Until next time, thanks for listening.