The City of Cape Town recently received the 2020 South African PMO (Project Management Office) of the Year award at the annual South African PMO Awards, a competition that recognises excellence and value creation in project, programme and portfolio management. The City’s Corporate Project, Programme and Portfolio Management Department (C3PM) has been recognised as the top PMO in South Africa and is the first public sector entity to win this award.
The municipality is now in the running for international recognition at the 2021 Global PMO Awards later this year where C3PM will represent South Africa and compete with over 300 contestants from 110 countries in the international contest.
The C3PM was established in 2011 and has grown into a mature and industry leading team that has delivered value in the project, programme, portfolio, engineering and contract management disciplines.
The skills and experience of this team has enabled the City to streamline and grow its project management practice across all City directorates over the past ten years. The department delivers a sophisticated level of work and provides essential strategic planning and an oversight role to the entire organisation.
‘The C3PM has taken the City to another level of project planning and execution. The achievements of this department would not have been possible if it was not for their impeccable team work. Recognition and thanks must go to every member of the management team; the Project Management Officers and ultimately all the City’s project managers who make it happen on the ground,’ said Councillor Sharon Cottle.
The department manages collaboration between all business units of the City and the successful delivery; monitoring; and evaluation of projects. Some of the ground-breaking work managed by C3PM includes the development and operationalisation of the SAP PPM system; the development of the City-wide portfolio management system; the project management of key strategic programmes and saving the City millions in the Covid-19 claim review process.
The C3PM department has previously received recognition for its strategic project management response to both the drought crisis in 2018 and the Covid-19 pandemic.
‘We especially relied on this team to assist the City departments to improve efficiency and effectiveness in delivering projects, while implementing the organisation’s response plans to both crises, where the strategic project management guidance was crucial during these times,’ said Councillor Cottle.