Similar to the AICPA for SOC 2 and CyberAB for CMMC, FedRAMP has a dedicated Program Management Office (PMO) that plays a central role in shaping, guiding, and enforcing federal cloud security standards.

If you’re pursuing or maintaining FedRAMP authorization, understanding what the PMO does—and how that role is changing in 2025—is key to navigating the process successfully.

This article breaks down what the FedRAMP PMO is, its historical responsibilities, and how its priorities are shifting under the new FedRAMP 20x initiative.

What is the FedRAMP PMO?

The FedRAMP Program Management Office (PMO) is the official federal team responsible for managing and maintaining the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program. It operates out of the General Services Administration (GSA) and is tasked with overseeing the policies, guidance, and operational infrastructure needed to support secure cloud adoption across the U.S. federal government.

Unlike traditional regulators or assessors, the PMO was designed to serve more as a coordinator and standards body with responsibilities like:

• Developing and publishing FedRAMP templates, guidance, and training
• Reviewing authorization packages and managing the FedRAMP Marketplace
• Accrediting Third Party Assessment Organizations (3PAOs)
• Promoting authorization reuse across federal agencies
• Supporting industry and agency stakeholders through outreach and education

Historically, the PMO has been a source of expertise and documentation for cloud service providers (CSPs) and agencies alike, setting the tone and pace for FedRAMP authorizations. Let’s take a closer look at its role before FedRAMP 20x.

The FedRAMP PMO before 2025

Before the launch of FedRAMP 20x, the PMO played an expansive role. It acted as a central authority that supported many parts of the FedRAMP authorization process, including:

• Templates and guidance: The PMO maintained the official system security plan (SSP) templates, policy documents, and playbooks that CSPs used to prepare their authorization packages.
• Training and education: The PMO developed training programs for CSPs, agency sponsors, and assessors to promote consistency and best practices across the ecosystem.
• Technical assistance: Teams within the PMO fielded questions and provided technical assistance and guidance on implementing Rev. 5 baselines.
• Package reviews: After the 3PAO’s and agency’s review of an authorization package, the PMO was responsible for “triple checking” the security assessment materials for inclusion into the FedRAMP Marketplace. 
• Continuous monitoring for JAB-authorized CSOs: Previously there were two paths to FedRAMP authorization: one through a sponsoring agency and one through a governing entity known as the Joint Authorization Board (JAB). When the JAB was replaced by the FedRAMP board and the JAB authorization path was discontinued in August 2024, PMO took on the centralized continuous monitoring for these JAB-authorized CSOs.

In short, the PMO functioned as both a technical advisor and compliance gatekeeper. This stopped with the introduction of FedRAMP 20x.

The FedRAMP PMO in 2025

In 2025, the FedRAMP PMO looks very different. With the rollout of FedRAMP 20x, the PMO has been restructured into a smaller, more focused team that is prioritizing efficiency, standardization, and community-led innovation.

The biggest difference moving forward is PMO’s scope and oversight. Their focus will be on:

• Clearing the Rev 5 agency authorization backlog
• Keeping agency authorizations under 30 days from submission to authorization
• Providing technical support for automation and security reuse
• Setting clear standards and maintaining program integrity
• Encouraging continuous validation of security controls, rather than relying solely on point-in-time documentation

The PMO’s new mission is to create an ecosystem where CSPs and agencies can self-service their authorization needs, using shared tools, machine-readable templates, and community-driven improvements.

To focus on ensuring this successful transformation of FedRAMP into a streamlined, automation-driven compliance framework, the PMO has offloaded certain responsibilities to agencies or community working groups, including:

• Maintaining technical assistance or guidance for implementing FedRAMP's security requirements
• Managing continuous monitoring for JAB-authorized systems
• Performing "triple check" reviews of agency ATOs to ensure authorization is proper (the PMO will now only verifies completeness, not correctness)

Supporting the FedRAMP 20x transformation

The PMO’s primary responsibility moving forward is to guide the successful rollout of FedRAMP 20x, a modernized framework built around automation, continuous monitoring, and agility. Its goals include:

• Supporting cloud-native architectures
• Promoting automated, machine-verifiable compliance
• Enabling continuous authorization models
• Releasing annual updates to FedRAMP baselines that reflect evolving threats
• Participating heavily in community working groups and addressing continued feedback and public comment with updated materials
• Reviewing and authorizing submissions for a new pilot program—the FedRAMP 20x Phase One pilot—while testing and evaluating approaches

Let’s take a closer look at the last bullet.

Rather than enforcing a rigid, top-down model, the PMO is enabling flexibility through pilot programs and shared learning. In Phase One of the FedRAMP 20x pilot, cloud service providers can pursue Low baseline authorization by demonstrating compliance with Key Security Indicators (KSIs) using automation tools. They don’t need to follow a prescriptive process or have an agency sponsor.

The PMO’s goal is to analyze these real-world implementations to inform and help the PMO settle on future standards, starting with a standardized 20x approach for FedRAMP Low authorization.

What to expect from the PMO going forward

As FedRAMP 20x evolves, the PMO will play a critical—but more strategic—role. Here’s what organizations can expect:

• More pilot programs: After evaluating Phase One outcomes, the PMO will begin a Moderate baseline pilot that expands on the Low authorization requirements by adding new KSIs. These pilots will help shape future baseline standards and identify scalable paths to compliance. The PMO also plans on launching Rev 5 pilots for adopting new FedRAMP standards like the Minimum Assessment Scope Standard and the Continuous Reporting Standard.
• Faster time to authorization: A major focus is removing manual bottlenecks and replacing traditional review processes with automated, cloud-native workflows. Once an agency grants an ATO, the PMO aims to authorize CSPs faster and with less friction.
• Industry-led compliance: The PMO plans to work publicly and iteratively with industry and facilitate, rather than lead, working groups between industry stakeholders and agencies. The goal is to replace the traditional top-down government oversight approach with a community-driven approach so that the CSPs and agencies are proposing and verifying new standards, automation methods, and monitoring strategies that work for them.
• Less direct interaction with PMO: Since the PMO will be taking a more hands off approach moving forward, CSPs will no longer receive updated technical assistance guidance or direct document reviews from the PMO.

For cloud providers and federal agencies, this means learning how to work with the new PMO model that is now focused on enablement and shared responsibility rather than direct oversight.