Oct20
After 20+ years working with PMOs, one pattern clearly stands out for me: no matter how well the PMO delivers, executives often struggle to truly see, remember, or fully appreciate its strategic value.
The PMO team is performing with discipline and consistency. Deliverables are being completed on time, governance processes are running smoothly, projects are advancing, and risks are being managed.
From a technical standpoint, the PMO seems to be doing everything right.
Yet… something feels off.
Despite the sustained effort and technical excellence, the PMO continues to struggle with one frustrating reality: the executive perception of its value remains low.
Executives continue to question the PMO’s relevance. Their confidence in the PMO’s strategic value stays low. And, perhaps most concerning of all, their perception of the PMO as a strategic asset remains stagnant or worse, continues to decline.
And in many cases, just when it seems things couldn’t get any worse, the PMO starts hearing the dreaded question:
"Do we really need a PMO?"
So the natural question that follows is: Why?
Why is it that even when a PMO consistently delivers, meets its KPIs, and checks every box on the technical side, it still fails to be recognized by executives as a strategic, indispensable asset?
The answer may not lie in performance reports or delivery metrics. It may lie inside the human mind.
Delivering value is not enough. You also need to actively manage how executives perceive that value.
This is not a failure of execution. It’s not about a lack of effort, technical expertise, competence, or dedication from the PMO team. The real problem runs deeper and is much more common than we would like to admit. It’s a failure to understand executive cognition.
Before assuming executives will automatically recognize strategic value, PMOs need to pause and ask themselves a hard but essential question: Do we truly understand how executive brains process and remember PMO contributions?
Ironically, even the most capable PMOs can be undermined not by their own actions but by the cognitive blind spots of the very people they’re trying to serve.
These biases shape how customers notice, remember, and interpret what the PMO does.
Even a highly effective PMO can become invisible, undervalued, or misunderstood simply because it falls into psychological blind spots that distort PMO customer perception.
And, anticipating results from one of our recent research studies, there are some classic, almost universal cognitive patterns that work against PMO recognition. Across industries, regions, and levels of executive experience, the same mental shortcuts appear time and again.
These five cognitive biases can sabotage PMO value perception. They are invisible traps that executives fall into, and it is often tricky for PMOs to navigate if they don’t understand how these biases work.
1) Selective Attention: Executives naturally filter out what’s familiar and consistent. The more smoothly your PMO delivers, the less executive attention you receive. What feels like success to the PMO becomes background noise to executives. Past consistency can actually work against future recognition.
2) Hedonic Adaptation: Executives quickly get used to improvements and elevated performance. What once impressed them becomes the new baseline expectation. Without realizing it, executives stop seeing ongoing PMO value because it has become their new normal. Yesterday’s wins become today’s invisible foundation.
3) Prevention Blindness: When PMOs prevent strategic disasters before they happen, executives never experience the crisis that didn’t occur. The PMO’s most valuable strategic work remains completely invisible to executive awareness. Success through prevention paradoxically reduces perceived value.
4) Effortless Illusion: The better the PMO executes strategic enablement, the easier everything appears to executives. They begin to believe that positive outcomes were inevitable, underestimating the strategic complexity and PMO coordination that made success possible. Excellence creates the perception of simplicity.
5) Hindsight Bias: After strategic initiatives succeed, executives unconsciously reconstruct the story as if the outcome was obvious and guaranteed from the beginning. The uncertainty, complexity, and critical PMO interventions get erased from executive memory. Success rewrites its own history, often without the PMO in it.
If you want executive recognition as strategic, make strategic value visible to executive cognition.
One of the most dangerous assumptions a PMO can make is believing that technical excellence will automatically lead to strategic recognition.
They won’t notice “portfolio governance improvements.” They’ll remember:
"The PMO helped us kill those three underperforming projects before they burned more cash.”
They won’t see “enhanced risk management frameworks.” They’ll recall that:
“The PMO flagged that regulatory issue six months before it hit the news.”
They won’t appreciate “resource capacity optimization.” They’ll value:
“The PMO reallocated our best people to the game-changing initiative just in time.”
As a strategic PMO leader, your job is to translate excellence into executive-relevant strategic impact, turning invisible PMO contributions into memorable business outcomes that executives can see, feel, and defend.
Because at the end of the day, this is the golden rule:
Executive attention determines strategic recognition. Executive memory determines strategic value perception. And the future of your PMO will always depend on how well you work with, not against, executive cognitive patterns.
When it comes to PMO value perception, facts alone are not enough; perception is reality, especially at the executive level.
How cognitive biases turned PMO success into invisibility.
Just a few years back, I had the opportunity to work with a PMO widely recognized across the organization for its operational excellence. For five years, they had consistently delivered outstanding outcomes.
Executives regularly praised their work, and department heads consistently rated their services as “business-critical.”
Yet when annual budget planning arrived, something bizarre happened:
The same executives who had been celebrating the PMO’s performance began questioning whether the PMO was still necessary:
“Things seem to be running smoothly now.”
“Maybe we’ve matured enough that we don’t need a PMO anymore.”
The PMO leadership was stunned!
How could five years of success suddenly become invisible?
That was one of the many times I witnessed all five cognitive biases working against a PMO simultaneously:
Selective Attention: Executives had become so accustomed to smooth delivery that they stopped noticing the PMO’s contribution.
Hedonic Adaptation: The outstanding project performance was now the new normal.
Prevention Blindness: Those major investment disasters the PMO helped avoid? Forgotten.
Effortless Illusion: Strategic decisions felt obvious because the PMO had made them feel that way.
Hindsight Bias: The executives genuinely believed those wins were "inevitable."
When we surveyed the leadership team, it became clear that they weren’t being dishonest or ungrateful. They genuinely couldn’t see the PMO’s ongoing strategic value.
The PMO had to completely rebuild executive perception from scratch, and most importantly, they began documenting “strategic counterfactuals,” showing executives what would have happened without PMO intervention.
Six months later, the narrative had flipped, but here’s the real takeaway: This wasn’t about manipulating perception. It was about understanding how executive brains filter information, and working with that reality, not against it.
Lastly, there’s an important warning here: While understanding cognitive biases is critical, PMO leaders must handle this topic carefully.
It’s easy to fall into the trap of blaming PMO customer perception for every challenge the PMO faces. This "victim mindset" can erode accountability and distract the PMO team from fixing real delivery or alignment issues.
There’s also a fine line between being psychology-aware and turning the PMO into a pop-psychology lab. The goal isn’t to lecture executives about their biases or manipulate perceptions. It’s to make genuine value visible in ways that resonate with how people naturally process information.
And of course, no amount of perception management can compensate for weak delivery. At the end of the day, the foundation remains the same:
Deliver real business impact first, then communicate it effectively.
Before your PMO sends its next portfolio report, launches that next governance process, or delivers another flawless project outcome, pause and ask yourself:
Are we making our strategic value visible to executive cognitive patterns?
Do we truly understand how executives notice, process, and remember PMO contributions?
Have we translated our operational excellence into executive-relevant strategic impact?
Are we actively countering the executive cognitive biases that make PMO work invisible?
Because no matter how excellent your PMO delivery may be, if executives can’t see your strategic value, the result will always be the same: No Recognition.
Until next time, stay bold, make it visible, deliver what matters, and make sure they know it.
Americo Pinto, PMI-PMOCP, PMP, PMOGA Managing Director at PMI
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