From a group discussion on LinkedIn:

A good manager who can manage a process, take criticism, adapt to circumstance and who will accept existing frameworks (e.g Managing Successful Programs/PRINCE2) will be a good PMO Manager.

Why MSP and/or PRINCE2 and not PMBOK?

Well, PMBOK or similar will provide the toolset to a lesser or greater extent.

Frameworks such as MSP/PRINCE2 provide the flow within which to use the tools....

Why is this important?

When I worked in Cardiac Surgery Theatres, there were many, many tools to be applied to keep a patient alive and to improve their condition.

Surgeons and Anaesthetists plus those of us who supported them had a fantastic body of knowledge that had been refined over time in its application to surgical procedures and had been sequenced for the optimum results. There were not only knowledge and tools but a clear framework within which to use them.

I can argue that given my exposure to the body of knowledge and the regular interaction with the tools of cardiac surgery, I could probably have pretty good go at undertaking a coronary artery bypass. Would that be desirable? Well I wouldn't mind; what about the patient.....? There are governance and process frameworks that protect the innocent from misadventure and misrepresentation.

So to me it is with the PMO or Enterprise Portfolio Management Office; there are both bodies of knowledge and refined frameworks to apply them in.

I know some good PMO Managers who have little in terms of certification but do have the naus to apply the frameworks and make sure that at least some us lunatics who take over the assylum have been properly diagnosed with the skills to achieve good results within their application of the processes.....