Project work is everywhere. Even in organizations with strong leaders and smart teams, projects often land on the desks of people whose “real job” is operations, service delivery, patient care, or frontline execution. They are already juggling full plates. Then a new initiative shows up: a rollout, a process change, a system implementation, a strategic program. The result is predictable: good ideas stall, change feels exhausting, and delivery depends on heroics.
In the “A Heart for Helping” episode of Wear Your Cape to Work, Amy Altomare from City of Hope shares a practical, replicable model that solves this problem: a Project Support Center. It is not a traditional PMO built around governance alone. It is a supportive hub that helps people do project work well, without adding burden, while also building long-term capability across the organization.
What a Project Support Center is
A Project Support Center is an internal service model that gives people across the organization a clear place to go when they need project help. It is built to reduce burden, add structure where it matters, and help projects move from idea to implementation without requiring every project owner to become a project management expert.
It typically includes a small team (or even a single lead) who offers hands-on support, a few standard templates and a simple project life cycle teams can follow, office hours and coaching to help non-project managers run projects successfully, and one central place to find resources, examples, and “how to” guidance.
“I found different models for project management. There were project management offices, transition support services offices and even the embedded project manager role into a team or department. But what stood out to me was in my situation, it wasn’t just pick up one of these models and put it into City of Hope. It was really how can I combine the best elements from each one of these into something that’s a multi-prong approach to project management in nursing.”
That is the heart of the model. A Project Support Center is not a copy-and-paste PMO. It is a blended approach that borrows what works from PMOs, transition support services, and embedded PM roles, then tailors it to how work actually gets done in your organization.
At City of Hope, Amy’s team made it both human and scalable: a small team people can reach, plus a SharePoint-based hub with templates, how-to guides, micro-learnings, and videos that walk teams through the project life cycle from start to finish.
Why this model works when traditional approaches struggle
Many organizations try to solve inconsistent project execution by introducing more process. That often backfires, especially in environments where operational work is intense and emotionally demanding.
Amy’s approach flips the order. Adoption does not come from enforcing structure. Adoption comes from support.
When people feel like a project approach saves them time, reduces uncertainty, helps them get unstuck, and makes success more likely, they start using it voluntarily. Then standardization becomes possible. A Project Support Center earns trust first, then formalizes consistency.
Start with discovery, not templates
Before building anything, start by talking to the people who will use it.
Amy’s guidance is to get out into the organization and ask:
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What is most challenging about implementing and sustaining change here?
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Where do projects get stuck most often?
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What support would make project work feel easier?
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In an ideal world, what would a project look like from start to finish?
This step reveals the real bottlenecks, which vary by organization, department, and culture. It also builds buy-in early because people feel listened to, not “rolled out on.” Only after that discovery should you decide what to standardize first.
Build the initial model around three core promises
A strong Project Support Center can be explained in three promises. If you cannot say these clearly, the model will feel vague and adoption will lag.
First, promise access to support. People need to know how to engage. Make it easy through office hours, a request form, a simple intake process, and a clear “how we help” page.
Second, promise access to expertise. This is not a repository-only model. The value is that people can talk to someone who knows how to run projects and navigate change.
Third, promise a consistent way to deliver. This is where standardization comes in, but only after support is established. A simple life cycle with a few repeatable tools beats a complex methodology that no one uses.
At City of Hope, the model also emphasized skill development and sustainable outcomes, not just getting projects launched.
Start small, then iterate
A common mistake is trying to build the whole center at once.
Amy recommends starting with one to three standard tools, then growing from there. A strong starter kit is a lightweight project charter, a roadmap or milestone plan, and a simple intake request that routes projects into the right level of support.
From there, you can add how-to guides, micro-learnings, examples, and short videos. The goal is not to create a perfect library. The goal is to create a usable path that teams will actually follow. Over time, those standards become “how work gets done here.”
Decide how you will support projects: lead, co-lead, or coach
A Project Support Center becomes scalable when it supports projects at different levels. Otherwise, the team becomes the bottleneck.
A practical model has three support modes.
Lead (done for you) works for strategic, high-risk, cross-functional, or high-visibility initiatives where experienced project leadership is essential.
Co-lead (done with you) is when the support center runs the first project side by side with a team lead. This builds confidence and capability while still protecting outcomes.
Coach (done by you, supported by us) is for repeatable, lower-risk work where the team can run the project using templates and guidance, with check-ins as needed.
Amy described a natural progression: the first time, the support team helps fill out the charter and prepares the steering committee presentation together. The next time, the project owner drafts the charter first, then meets to refine it. That simple shift is how you scale without sacrificing quality.
Create a simple project life cycle that matches how your organization works
One reason the City of Hope model gained traction is that Amy did not drop in a generic methodology. She used foundational principles, then tailored them to what worked for nursing and patient care services.
Your life cycle should feel intuitive for your environment. It should use plain language. It should make the “next step” obvious. It should help busy people move from idea to execution without needing to become project management experts.
The most important part is consistency. If you want teams to use the process, keep it light enough to follow, but structured enough to protect outcomes.
Build your resource hub so support is not locked in one person’s head
A Project Support Center is more than a helpful person. It is a repeatable system.
Amy’s team built a SharePoint site with templates, how-to guides, micro-learnings, and short videos that show the project life cycle in action. That hub acts like an extension of the team, especially when demand grows.
Your hub does not need to be perfect on day one. Start with the templates you are introducing, a one-page guide on when to use each, and a short “How to work with us” page. Add examples as you go, especially real examples from your organization once early wins start to happen.
Market it internally like a service, not a policy
One of the biggest challenges Amy faced was that people were used to “just doing projects” without support. They did not automatically route work through the Project Support Center because they had never had a resource like that before.
So the team talked about it constantly. They promoted it in different forums. They ran manager training and basic frontline training. They invited people to office hours. They drove people to the SharePoint hub.
They also listened carefully for projects that were already happening, then inserted themselves in a helpful way by asking, “Can we support you?” That mix of visibility, persistence, and genuine assistance is what built familiarity and trust.
If you build it but do not market it, adoption will be slow. Treat it like a service you are launching inside your organization.
Expect the first hurdle to be adoption, not capability
Most organizations do not struggle because they are incapable of doing project work. They struggle because project work competes with everything else.
The adoption hurdle is emotional and practical. People are busy. They are skeptical. They may have been burned by past “process rollouts.”
That is why the Project Support Center model works. It is not asking people to carry more. It is offering to carry some of the load with them.
In Amy’s words, the win is helping teams feel like project work is not just “extra things all the time.” The center reduces burden first, then raises maturity.
Watch for the moment when you need to shift from doing to empowering
As the Project Support Center gets traction, demand increases. That is a good problem, but it can overwhelm a small team quickly.
Amy’s team had to make the shift from doing everything for everyone to empowering others to do more themselves. That is why the co-lead model matters. It is how you scale and how you build lasting capability across the organization.
This is also where you can define simple rules. For example, the center leads enterprise initiatives, co-leads department initiatives, and coaches smaller frontline projects. The exact tiers will vary, but the principle is the same.
Lead with heart, not control
Amy’s “superpower” is that she leads projects with heart. In healthcare, that matters. But the principle applies everywhere.
When a Project Support Center is built around compassion, partnership, and practical help, people stop seeing project management as a compliance function. They start seeing it as an assist.
That shift changes everything. It improves outcomes. It strengthens relationships. It increases adoption. It creates sustainability.
If you are considering building a Project Support Center, the starting point is not a methodology. It is a mindset: see project work as a shared load, then design a system that makes it easier for people to carry it.
A simple starting plan you can use this month
Interview 10 to 15 potential users across roles and levels. Capture themes and pain points. Select one to three standard tools to introduce, such as a charter, roadmap, and intake form. Set up recurring office hours. Launch a basic hub page where people can find templates and learn how to engage. Pick one visible project to co-lead so you can demonstrate value quickly. Share the win, then iterate.
That is how a Project Support Center starts: small, useful, visible, and built on trust.
If your organization is asking busy people to lead change on top of day-to-day work, a Project Support Center is one of the most practical ways to make projects easier to start, easier to run, and easier to sustain. Start by listening to the people who are carrying the load. Build a small set of standards that actually help. Offer real support through office hours and coaching. Then iterate, expand, and empower others to lead more of their own project work over time. When project management shows up as an assist, not an added burden, adoption follows and results do too.
Amy Altomare is a Project Manager at City of Hope and serves as Program Director for Clinical Quality Strategy and Optimization within Nursing and Patient Care Services. She holds her PMP, a Doctor of Education, and a Lean Six Sigma certification. Amy also teaches as an adjunct professor at USC and at City of Hope. She created the Project Support Center at City of Hope, a blended model that combines elements of PMOs, transition support services, and embedded project management to help teams deliver meaningful change with structure, support, and sustainability.