Majority of projects failed due to mismanagement factors such as funds, planning, time, and resources. With the adoption of Project Management Office (PMO) in an organization, it able to manage the projects practises through a distinctive office dedicated to project management with specific roles and functions that should be followed by the project officer for all the projects. The positioning of PMO in the organisational structure and its job responsibilities, are critical factors in project success. This paper presents a study to uncover the topology of PMO in the project-based organizations in United Arab Emirates (UAE). This qualitative study was conducted through interviews with twenty professionals working in PMO from four companies in the UAE. Based on the findings from the interview sessions, PMOs can be divided into three types: supportive, controlling, and directive. The result indicates that the type of PMO chosen have a significant impact on the efficiency of the project delivery. While controlling PMO approach, it is desired to "clear-house" the activities, processes, procedures, documentation, and more, the organisation requires that the help be used in addition to providing it, supportive PMO is the best choice if the goal is to establish a "rein in" of project management data that all project managers within the firm may freely access. Furthermore, Directive PMO goes beyond simple control and "takes over" projects by providing the necessary resources and project management expertise. According to the findings of the interviews, the PMO performs a variety of functions, including project support, training, lesson-learned maintenance, project management tool and software support, project control, inter-project communication, managing shared resources, and encouraging good project management and decision-making. PMO forecasts future resource requirements, plans for strategic, non-billable, and billable usage, and assigns appropriate resources to appropriate projects at appropriate times. This improves resource utilisation efficiency, and significantly lowers project resource costs.

In current competitive market, organisations strive not only to complete projects on time, but also to ensure stakeholder satisfaction. Creating a separate body or department for project management within an organisation is frequently motivated by a desire to improve project management and reduce projects that fall short of customers' and stakeholders' expectations due to budget overruns or intolerable delays. Thus, Project management Office (PMO) practises are becoming more popular around the world to support project management activities. Hence, this paper presents a qualitative approach by interviewing twenty experienced personnel who had worked with PMO for several years. The experts were from four organisation namely Masdar Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company, Al Mansouri 3B Group, Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange (ADX), and Gulf Falcon Company (GFC). These open interview sessions were to discover the success factors in implementing PMO in UAE organisation. The results of the interview found that there are six key factors affecting the effective implementation of the PMO which are project flexibility; politics and change resistance in stakeholders; alignment and accountability; efficient resources; risk management; effective leadership and team management. Project flexibility, as well as effective leadership and team management, are cited as the most critical factors by all respondents. The paper also incorporates an effective PMO framework which suggests various strategic measures to implement in five phases of the project lifecycle: initiation, planning, execution, monitoring and controlling, closing, and post-implementation reviewing.