- effective portfolio management re: only taking on the amount of concurrent work which can be effectively completed without unhealthy multitasking
- no premature commitments to dates or budgets
- foundational PM training for anyone in an organization involved with or supporting projects Saving Changes...
Jeffrey HarmaTechnical Project Manager| Plante MoranRochester Hills, Mi, United States
Entirely dependent on where your organization/company currently sits on the PM maturity curve, but I'll give a generic answer of : 1) PM fundamentals training, 2) Adoption of a standard PM methodology, 3) Implementation of a PMO/Governance. Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
Perhaps I will not answer the question but I think it could be useful to write about maturity assements just in case some people are not aware on that. I performed maturity assessments in the past in lot of organizations related to different functions/process using the CMU model due to I got my ph.d there. To meassure maturity indicators are not the key, is the process to discover maturity what counts. No matter that let me say I was one more inside the group of authors and reviewers of OPM from the very begining. Basically, when you perform maturity assessments, what you do is talking with people that is involved in running the process that belong to different business units to get the answer to two basic questions: 1-do you know that a .... process is in place? 2-make some basic questions, not always the same, aleatory, about how they work with the process. The person have to answer aligned to the process. That´s all you need to understand if a process is mature or not. The meassure are the amount of yes answers for question 1 and how much it is the answer to question 2 aligned to the process. Saving Changes...
Thomas WalentaGlobal Project Economy ExpertHackenheim, Germany
Fully agree with Sergio.
Not the result is important (sometimes) but the process to get there. Like in life (result = death, process = having fun).
Similar to planning: not the plan is important, but the process of planning. The process removes uncertainty, the plan often not.
To your question: 1. think about reducing uncertainty for management, e.g. by establishing visibility of projects (one result of implementing portfolio mgmt) 2. think about reducing uncertainty for project managers, e.g. by establishing helpful standards, templates, processes and providing career certainty (training, career path, certification, mentors) 3. think about reducing uncertainty for recipients of project results (users, sponsors, customers etc) by providing them with meaningful (for them) outlooks Saving Changes...
It's not three things, but Capabilities. What are the project management related capabilities that your organization needs to be successful in achieving business objectives?
A maturity model is static. It can provide a foundation, but getting past level three may not be worth it. The capabilities that the business needs will change over time. Understanding and addressing those needs will give you more value than a checklist. Saving Changes...
How I would define specific metrics for each is where it depends. The purpose for metrics is to enable decision making, so I would absolutely not pick the first 3 that popped into my head. I would pick 3 that enable me to more effectively manage the business.
If I was developing a PM maturity model for an organization, I would break the 3 categories down into a logical taxonomy, such as the maturity of processes for each area of DMAIC. If I was working to improve my small team in 2020, I would gather the team and solicit input on what we are doing well, and where we could improve. Then in either case I would pick 3 focus areas based both on value, and ability to improve. I would ensure of the 3 we have a mix of improvement areas where we could score easy wins (low hanging fruit), and longer term strategic improvement areas. They must be measurable, but that could be done via survey if hard metrics are not available. Saving Changes...
In short, I would consider these simple steps:
- Start by training a group on project management, if not already done.
- Provide them with templates and processes.
- Compare their result with others, show improvement gain. Saving Changes...
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