Copyright (c) 2026 Documentos de Trabajo ECACEN
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Adaptive Governance and Project Management in the Public Sector: A Reinterpretation of the PMO in Contexts of Uncertainty
Project management in the public sector faces increasing challenges in contexts characterized by uncertainty, institutional fragmentation, and pressure for immediate results. This document proposes a reinterpretation of the implemen-tation of Project Management Offices (PMOs) in local governments, addressing them as organizational articulation mechanisms rather than technical struc-tures. Based on an analysis of the Ibagué Mayor’s Office case, an adaptive governance approach is proposed, focused on the early generation of public value and the progressive consolidation of institutional capacities. The study adopts an applied qualitative approach and engages with contributions from the UNAD Press, particularly from the academic output of ECACEN, to propose a gradual, contextualized, and transferable implementation model. The results suggest that the effectiveness of the PMO depends less on its formal design and more on its adaptability, legitimacy, and usefulness in decision-making.
