A study of the relationship between the project management office (PMO) leader sources of power and the quality of the PMO leader member exchange influence on project success

The Standish Group CHAOS Manifesto 2013 report highlights that in 2012 information technology project performance results reflected 39% Successful, 43% Challenged and 18% Failed projects. These results suggest over 60% of the IT software projects exhibit opportunities for further refinement and process optimization to achieve success. This research will determine whether there is a relationship between the project management office (PMO) leader sources of power, the quality of relationship between the PMO leader and subordinates characterized by the project community defined as the project manager, project team and stakeholders that contribute to successful project completion. The expectations are organizations will leverage this research in selecting PMO leaders that demonstrate specific sources of power and establish quality PMO relationships to increase the probability of positive project success to optimize research findings.;This study focused on the PMO leader's sources of power (coercive, reward, legitimate, information, expert, and referent) and the quality of PMO relationship known as the Leader-Member exchange (LMX) which is formed between leaders and followers as predictors of project success. The study evaluated the impact of the PMO leader's preferred leadership style source of power and the quality of the relationship on project success. The study focused on examining the effect of power on achieving project outcome success taking into consideration the relationship between PMO leader's leadership style and project success factors. The study consisted of 272 individuals working in diverse industries in roles ranging from chief executive officer level, senior management, middle-level management through operations staff worker. The analysis showed some correlation between affective PMO leadership style and project team with project success. This study found three major findings associated with sources of power, the quality of the leadership relationship and PMO Maturity and predicting project performance.;PMO leadership that scored higher in expert and reward power were perceived by respondents as more successful in achieving project success. This finding emphasizes the utility of using expert and reward power when managing project teams and it also adds to the body of knowledge on PMO leadership power and project success which did not previously exist.;PMO leaders that scored higher in the quality of the Leader-Member Exchange relationship were perceived to experienced more project success. This finding is perhaps the most important addition to previous research on project management leadership and provides clarity on the significant role of the establishing quality relationship in order to attain project success.;Project PMO, Center of Excellence and/or Strategic PMO have a greater impact on respondent perception of improving project performance than Business PMO. This finding highlights the importance of evolving the PMO expertise to become more strategic for enhancement of project performance. This expands the research on PMOs in an area not previously studied related to PMO Maturity, PMO relationship quality and project outcome.;These results expand the current project management body of knowledge related to PMO leadership and project success. Additionally, it explored the connection between the sources of power employed by the PMO leader as a factor in predicting project outcome while emphasizing the importance of the quality of the relationship between leader and followers.;The results of this study will expand the project management body of knowledge on project management leadership. Finally, the study found overwhelmingly the quality of the relationship between the PMO leader and followers had an impact on project success.