Paper Title
Evaluating The Roles of Project Management Office (PMO) in Adopting Project Management (PM) Best Practice and Improving Business Performance

Abstract
The evolution of the construction industry and the increase of its complexity in current projects following the global economic crisis and concerns of repeating unsuccessful experiments, have resulted in significant pressures on construction organisations, forcing them to establish new programmes and departments to identify their priorities and achieve effective results. With every project, there is competition between many different factors and the importance of using project management (PM) practices is increasing dramatically. This is one of the factors that has increased the pressure on construction firms to engage in these practices properly. A large number of researchers and experts have found that investing in Project Management Offices (PMOs) can lead to higher levels of project success whilst also embedding strong and consistent project management practices, processes, and procedures into the organisation. The research project aims to develop a conceptual model for the implementation of PM practices within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) construction firm’s PMO. This can be done via various maturity levels of PMO to define, integrate, and develop PM best practice in order to improve business performance. The methodology employed a mixed method approach. The data used for this study were collected by quantitative and qualitative methods. Approximately 340 questionnaires were distributed randomly to the PM department of medium to large construction firms in KSA and a total of 16 semi-structured interviews were conducted face–to-face. The results of the questionnaires show that the current practice and challenges can be linked and addressed by the PMO values and principles. The personal interviews describing the PMO functions and its effect suggest that the set up for one organisation cannot be implemented in the same way to another organisation. As a result, this research concludes by proposing a conceptual model that uses different maturity levels of PMO, namely: supportive PMO, controlling PMO, and directive PMO, in order to review the effects of PMOs on both the organisation and its various projects and to fit within organisational needs. Keywords - Project Management Office; Project Management; Project Manager.