It is sad to see that there still is a gender inequity when it comes to PM salaries. Many of the best project managers that I know are women. They deserve to be compensated equally to their male counterparts. Let's do our part to equalize the salaries and eridcate this phenomon in future salary surveys.

I appreciate the fact that Tom mentions that "aligning the PMO to the value it provides to the business". For a PMO to survive today it must be aligned with meeting the needs of the business.

I do have one concern with this article, when Tom speaks about Mission he states "The Acme Project Management Office (PMO) implements and supports project management methodology to enable our organization..." The trap I see most often with PMOs is a focus on the "methodology". This mission clearly states that "methodology" comes first. Why not re-state this Mission to say "The Acme Project Management Office (PMO) enables our organization to deliver projects faster, cheaper, with higher quality and within estimates and expectations.” Now you have a mission statement focused on business value and not methodology.

The business doesn't care what methodology the PMO uses. They do care about results. Keep this in mind when you setup your PMO. Be sure to focus on your customer and the value that you provide to them.