Most people have no idea what project managers actually deal with.
What is GPMEC?
Read time: 3 minutes
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Each week, I tackle reader questions about PMP preparation, how to implement PMP into real-life projects, and a Senior Project Manager career.
For more:
Junior vs Senior Project Manager | You cannot prevent all conflicts |
The Chaos Coordinator | The Project Habit You’re Probably Skipping |
What's Inside This Edition:
What is GPMEC?
How to fill out the PMP application?
Most people have no idea what project managers actually deal with.
Let’s be honest..
Most people have no idea what project managers actually deal with.
They think you run meetings and update timelines. Here’s what really happens:
→ You’re expected to have all the answers even when no one does.
→ You hold people accountable and end up feeling like the bad guy.
→ You spend more time managing emotions than managing tasks.
→ You make tough calls so others don’t have to.
→ When things go right, no one notices.
→ When things go wrong, all eyes are on you.
→ And sometimes, even your best plan falls apart through no fault of your own.
Still here?
Still pushing forward?
Then you’re doing the real work.
Because project management isn’t about perfection.
It’s about persistence.
PROJECTS GONE WILD?
How The Strategic Backbone with A Group Project Management Excellence Committee Transforms Organizational Performance from Mayhem to Mastery
Because spreadsheets shouldn’t be the loudest voice in the room - The Grown-Ups (ones who actually read the project charter) should!
In my 17-year career managing projects, programmes, and portfolios across complex, multi-layered organizations, I’ve consistently seen one pattern: the success or failure of projects rarely comes down to tools or talent alone.
Instead, it hinges on
👌structure,
👌alignment, and
👌accountability
All of which are enabled through strong governance. That’s why every forward-thinking company should establish a Group Project Management Excellence Committee (GPMEC), traditionally called, the EPMO (Enterprise Project Management Office). But, lets talk details.
GPMEC isn’t about the rules, it’s about who can use the PM skill to step into a role not traditionally called “Project Manager”:
A GPMEC is a cross-functional, senior-level governance body, designed to
👏oversee project delivery,
👏enforce standards, and
👏drive continuous improvement across the enterprise.
While individual project steering committees focus on single initiatives, the GPMEC operates at the portfolio or group level:
🎯 ensuring alignment with strategic goals,
🎯maximizing return on investment (ROI),
🎯enabling cross-functional mobilized skilling and
🎯improving project & quality outcomes consistently.
Why just be a PM when you can use that skill to transform the organization in any room you enter, even strategic ones?
So what do the GPMEC actually do?
Companies without a GPMEC face risks such as
💣project silos,
💣inconsistent delivery methods,
💣lack of accountability,
💣misaligned priorities, and
💣misused resources!
Organizations that implement a GPMEC experience
💸higher success rates,
💸better collaboration, and
💸improved business performance.
Many organisations have implemented a GPMEC and on overall project success and delivery performance noted a few positive impacts that stood the test of time:
Project Governance as a Critical Success Factor
🎯 According to Project Management Institute research, project governance is often the top determinant of project success—frequently cited as the root cause when projects fail.
🎯 Research in Malaysia’s construction sector confirms effective governance—especially with proactive risk and benefit management—significantly improves project performance.
Quantitative Business Studies
A global survey from PricewaterhouseCoopers covering 1,524 organizations found:
🎯30% of project failures stemmed from poor estimating and planning,
🎯16% due to lack of executive sponsorship, and
🎯12% from unclear goals and objectives.
Notably, operating an established PMO, which often includes structures like GPMEC, ranks among the top three factors that drive successful project delivery.
Governance Enhances Team Cohesion & Performance
IBM, known for its complex global project environments, implemented a structured Project Governance Board to oversee cross-functional program portfolios across business units and continents. As a result:
🎯Project teams reported greater cohesion due to clear escalation paths and decision-making authority.
🎯Teams adopted consistent delivery standards and communication protocols, reducing friction between departments.
🎯Program managers noted a 25% improvement in cross-team collaboration scores in internal assessments within the first year of implementation.
At a glance, the Business Case Benefits of a GPMEC, seem pretty straightforward but diving deeper I noticed that higher success rates lead to other underrated benefits:
🎯 Higher Project Success Rates:
✅Organizations with high project management maturity are 2.5x more likely to complete projects on time,
✅2x more likely to stay within budget, and
✅3x more likely to meet original project goals.
💸Better Resource Utilization:
✅Enables enterprise-level capacity planning and strategic allocation.
✅Through multi-functional teams, the reduction of cost on external support is achieved
📈 Risk Mitigation and Agility:
✅Provides structured escalation paths and supports flexible governance during change.
✅PMO’s can structure technology enablement to support future-driven strategies within organisations. Think about it, if you’re not consistently reviewing technology alongside the strategy, within 2 years your tech stack is actually out of date!
Organizations without a GPMEC experience strategic drift, reactive firefighting, inconsistent reporting, low morale among project managers, and missed benefits — all of which lead to long-term inefficiencies and project failure.
Of course, the key roles of GPMEC are key to this success and provision of support
A GPMEC is not about adding bureaucracy — it’s about enabling strategy. It empowers seasoned professionals to scale excellence across all project levels. With the right structure, strategy, and leadership, a GPMEC helps ensure that projects don’t just get done — they get done right!
Let’s Be Honest: Without Governance, It’s Chaos
Let’s take a breath for a minute. Imagine a world where every project manager is a lone cowboy, each galloping off in different directions with their own tools, frameworks, and “innovative” trackers. One’s using Agile, another’s using Waterfall, someone’s using Sticky Notes, and one brave soul is single handedly, managing a multi-million-dollar program on ClickUp. Without a GPMEC, that’s not just reality — it’s Monday morning 😁
A Group Project Management Excellence Committee acts as the seasoned rancher corralling those wild stallions into a strategic stampede — making sure they’re headed in the same direction and, most importantly, not trampling over each other’s timelines, budgets, and stakeholders, building a more mature organization, both head and heart 💜
But, I get it, it’s yet another committee so here’s the real, unfiltered, scoop.
Your GPMEC isn’t going to be some secret committee in a dusty boardroom pushing paper. They are your Project Management meets Strategy, Love Language Masters. A multi-disciplinary, purpose-driven crew that ensure :
💸You don’t end up building a five-million-dollar portal that no one logs into.
🦄Your project managers aren’t suffering in silence, buried under inconsistent metrics and 97 versions of the same RAID log, in Excel, PPT and some random dashboard.
🍵Your execs get crisp, clean points of view instead of status reports that look like they were generated by a caffeinated squirrel.
It brings order to the madness. And more importantly, it lets PMs do what they do best — deliver.
As someone who’s been in the game for 17 years, I’ve seen trends come and go and I love a good design, even if it’s repeated — but the one true constant is that consistent, excellent delivery never goes out of style. And here’s the secret sauce: when you help shape or lead a GPMEC, you position yourself not just as a project executor but as a strategic partner. You speak the love language of value enablement, strategic alignment, and benefit realization.
So, by starting a GPMEC, you give seasoned professionals a platform to finally play with those ideas that have been filed away, awaiting that mastery activation!
Suddenly, their voice is in the room where decisions are made. They’re not just reacting to scope — they’re shaping strategy.
And that’s where the real influence lives 👏
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