3.2. Field research
To investigate the PMO functions in change management process the following hypothesis has been formulated:
Project management office may contribute into change management process by performing various functions in any kind of changes
To confirm or disprove this statement the field research has been conducted to provide preliminary qualitative and quantitative data. The qualitative data has been needed to shed light on the functions that could be performed by PMO and what role it could play during change implementation while the quantitative data could provide an additional insight into the issue.
To obtain the empirical data needed the survey has been conducted by means of electronic questionnaires. The survey process has consisted of three stages:
Developing questionnaire
Respondents selection and questionnaires distribution
Collecting responses
Talking about the first stage dedicated to the development of questionnaire, it has been decided to split it into four parts. The first part has been dedicated to the general information about the respondent (his/her position in the company) and the company described (including industry and organizational type). It has been supposed that these questions, firstly, would prepare the respondents for the following essential questions and also could provide additional information while interpreting the results.
The second part has been designed to get the information about the change faced by the company. The questions have been composed in accordance with the logic of Gareis (2010) model and have been expected to define the change type.
The following part has been targeted to identify the functions or tools that have been used while implementing this particular change. As well the respondents have been asked to choose the functions or tools that have not been used but, in their opinion, have been worthy to use. This step has been expected to reveal the PMO functions that could be used while implementing this type of changes.
Finally, some questions about PMO and its role in change implementation (if it exists) have been asked. These questions have been targeted to reveal directly whether the PMOs already perform change management functions in organizations.
The questionnaire consists of various types of questions, including factual yes/no questions, one-choice and multiple-choice questions, evaluative (ranking) questions and several open-ended questions. The questionnaire is presented in the Appendix 1.
To create the electronic questionnaire it has been decided to use Google Drive platform that allows to design questionnaires, as well as receive, collect and summarize responses in a convenient way.
Coming to the questionnaire distribution and data gathering, it is necessary to mention that it has been decided to conduct a survey among the respondents working not only in the project-based (organizations PBO). From the survey perspective, the main target is to reveal ALL the possible functions existing in change management process that theoretically COULD be carried out by the Project Management Offices.
Thus, the survey has been conducted among Russian and international respondents. As a result, 79 reliable responses have been received, except partial or false answers. The geographical distribution is represented in chart below:
