Why You Need to Understand Project Management Maturity
| In the same way that project management practitioners can be described as beginner, intermediate or advanced, organizations can also be described as having low, medium, or high levels of project management. These levels of project management reflect the level of organizational project management maturity (OPMM). Knowing the level of OPMM your organisation is currently at, and also knowing where it should be is essential to help you reach your organisational goals and strategy through better delivery of portfolios, programmes, and projects. An OPMM assessment will look at all aspects of the way you run portfolios, programmes and projects within the organisation including:
A good assessment will look at all the processes and practices you have, evidence of them being used (or not), and also interview users and key stakeholders either in a workshop or face to face interviews. Once the evidence gathering is completed they can provide scores for individual business units, an organisational score (usually 0-5), benchmarking against others in the industry and a set of prioritized (and achievable) recommendations to move you towards your goal. A good OPMM assessment provides a benchmark for your future efforts. It lets you know that you are progressing in the right areas. Without it you simply don’t know how well you are doing with your improvement efforts. It’s a good idea to commit to regular OPMM assessments every 18-24 months to check how you are progressing, and to reprioritize recommendations. Don’t assume that all organizations must be at the top level of maturity, it’s important to consider that the level of OPMM that is desirable for any organisation is directly related to the size, cost, length, complexity and industry of the projects being undertaken. Organizations undertaking highly complex, long term, expensive projects should aim to have a higher level of project management maturity, while organizations and small businesses routinely undertaking short, low cost, low complexity projects may be perfectly suited to a lesser level of project management maturity. Using an external consultant to assess your level of project management maturity and make recommendations has a number of benefits:
There are several good commercial models available in the market and the benefit of using one of these is that it allows you to more easily benchmark your organisation against others in their database. I am experienced in using the P3M3, OPM3, HSI 4Q model and bespoke OPMM assessment models and if you have any questions about any aspect of organizational project management maturity please do not hesitate to contact me. If you have any questions, comments or feedback please feel free to email me. |
Outputs versus Outcomes
| One of the greatest challenges we face as project managers is a focus on outputs over outcomes. Generally, projects are initiated to deal with a particular outcome. A problem or opportunity has been identified and the project has been established to provide a solution. The objective is that the outcome will be achieved and the problem resolved or the opportunity taken. As part of the planning process of any project we identify an output, or outputs, which can deliver that outcome. We then take the steps as project managers to deliver that output but what often happens is we fail to check whether the output will still deliver the expected outcome. Don’t get caught up in the assumption that your project output will deliver the outcomes it was supposed to do. Stay focussed on the outcomes during your project and be prepared to modify your outputs to ensure that you reach your intended outcomes. So what’s the difference between outputs and outcomes? If you work in the IT industry the outcome may be a better user interface leading to greater customer satisfaction. A project is established to develop a software output that is intended to deliver the outcome. At the time the project is initiated it is clear that with the information available that the output will deliver the outcome. But what if new information is discovered about ways to improve customer satisfaction? That is the time to revisit the output and see if it is still the best way to deliver the outcome. If you work in the construction industry you may have identified that a particular public gymnasium building with a certain floor area, height and fit out will deliver the expected outcome of greater community involvement in recreation and greater levels of fitness. This should be your focus, not the building. You should always be prepared to examine your project from the point of view of the intended outcome and question whether the output is still the best way to achieve it. One of the most important roles a project manager can play is to focus on the intended outcomes and be an advocate for this in their project. At times it may require some changes to your intended outputs but at the end of the day a focus on outcomes over outputs will result in a greater chance of project success, happier clients and an improved reputation.
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