Companies are on the prowl for answers. Almost everyone's feeling the pinch of the global economic tailspin, and project management maturity is looking like a pretty good way to improve project performance and boost the bottom line—or at least stop the hemorrhaging.
Yet there's a gaping maw between perception and reality when it comes to organizations gauging where they stand. Establishing the right procedures and tools is a great start, but it doesn't necessarily result in instant maturity. And still, many companies just don't see it that way.
That misperception often comes down to a poorly defined focus, explains John Schlichter, president, OPM Experts LLC, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
“There is a difference between creating a standard and achieving standardization. The former is just a document, whereas the latter is the result of effective governance, policies that distinguish what is important, training in which users experience their competence and a compliance function,” he says. “Typically organizations get this wrong at the very beginning of their maturity journey, as they focus on a methodology instead of governance.”
The gap also occurs when the organization's leaders ask questions that fail to probe deep enough. It's not enough, for example, to determine if a governance structure is in place, says Mr. Schlichter.
“Instead, we must ask whether governance is effective, what the governance agenda is, who is carrying it out and how,” he says. “Leaders need to know if instituted policies focus the organization on the right things and have force and effect in order to cause the intended behavior.”
IN SEARCH OF ROI
Despite the belief of many executives that all things related to project management affect only project managers, the truth is that maturity affects the entire organization.
A lack of maturity leads to rather obvious and undesirable results, says Wilhelm Kross, a consultant based in Bad Homburg, Germany. Companies stuck at this stage usually are unable to learn from past experiences—good or bad—and waste money on continuous reinvention.
“This may work in a small startup-type organization, but likely won't work in a larger organization that relies on teamwork and multideveloper collaboration,” he says.
When maturity lags, projects take longer, teams fail to stick to the budget and the quality of the end-product suffers, explains Luis Gerardo Ortiz Müller, estrategia corporativa, Volkswagen de México, Puebla, México.
TIP The ROI of striving for maturity may vary. “Most organizations have a range of low-hanging fruits that are easy to pick for quick and important wins. It is also true that the payback from increasing maturity may reduce as the organization's maturity increases,” says Patrick Weaver, PMI-SP, PMP, Stakeholder Management pty Ltd., South Melbourne, Australia.
“These things cause dissatisfaction among the ranks as well as an inability to achieve corporate strategies,” he says. “On the other side, continually improving maturity yields quality, facilitates goal achievement and allows the team to effectively align projects with organizational strategy.”
spotting the signs
The pursuit of maturity doesn't always go smoothly. Here are a few signs that could signal the initiative is off track:
| > | slipping support: Unsigned project charters are just one of the true telltale signs that support may be waning. |
| > | investment invisibility: Words only go so far. To realize success and improve the organization's maturity, companies must invest resources, says Patrick Weaver, PMI-SP, PMP, Stakeholder Management pty Ltd. “There needs to be a willingness to invest in improvements,” he says. “Over 95 percent of the cost of any initiative will be in developing and implementing the improved processes to achieve the desired benefits.” |
| > | up go the barricades: It is not uncommon for organizations to face obstacles as they work through transitions between obvious stages of maturity. That's where an assessment can help. “As organizations grow, a maturity assessment can help leaders with the addition of internal systems to improve delegation and control. This is ‘good bureaucracy,’ but it inevitably leads to the crisis of needing to deal with too much red tape. This too can be addressed by a maturity assessment to help with the development of teamwork and then revitalization of the organization,” says John Schlichter, OPM Experts LLC. |
| > | clash of the cultures: Striving toward maturity dictates the development of a dynamic culture capable of changing to meet organizational needs. However, real culture change takes time. Investing in an Organizational Project Management Maturity Model (OPM3®) initiative, for example, may deliver a quick win. But the real benefits come from the changed attitudes and culture within the organization—and that often takes several years. |
“Until the culture of the organization has changed, the CEO needs to keep focused on driving the improvements needed to make the organization successful,” says Mr. Weaver.
RIGHTING THE SHIP
Developing maturity is a continuous process that requires significant work— and a willingness to tackle turf wars and other sticky issues of corporate culture.
Improvements in maturity are dependent on a concerted effort to develop, improve, and nurture communication between executives and professionals in project management, says Cass Tang, PMP, Synergy Corps, Federal Way, Washington, USA.
And that can't work without transparency and total honesty.
“Unfortunately, the protectiveness that company project managers and business managers have over their area of responsibility tends to minimize their openness to improvement and consideration for maturing their project management office for the betterment of their company,” she says.
Companies need to expand their horizons.
“It's important for companies to reward openness, show a willingness to learn and collaborate with project managers from other companies,” Ms. Tang says. “Also, executive management should remain open to learning more about project management at companies other than their own.”
Senior management also needs to overcome the default position of optimism, which can cloud perceptions. Although that's often harder to accomplish in practice than in theory, effective benchmarking can help significantly, says Patrick Weaver, PMI-SP, PMP, manager, Stakeholder Management pty Ltd., South Melbourne, Australia.
“There is a clear need to overcome situations where senior management thinks the business is in good shape and middle management is encouraged to support this view if they wish to preserve their position,” he says. “Success here requires a very open culture to allow middle and junior managers to honestly inform their seniors if things are not very good.”
EMBRACING ASSESSMENTS
Being able to make significant and sustainable maturity progress ultimately depends upon the organization's ability to understand its current position.
Without clear policies that distinguish what's important about project management processes, it is difficult to move from standardization to measurement.
“Either measurement does not occur at all or there is a proliferation of metrics addressing everything under the sun, making it difficult to know which things to focus on,” says Mr. Weaver. “Both situations are dysfunctional. In turn, without an effective metrics program, it is impossible to establish internal systems that enable proactive management and control of variation in performance. The problems multiply at each stage of maturity if the preceding stages do not provide strong foundations.”
Assessments of maturity should not be dictated from on high, but rather from a range of sources across the organization.
“It is important to engage executives, process owners, functional managers, practitioners and individual contributors to determine what is really going on and the opportunities for getting everyone to read from the same sheet of music,” Mr. Schlichter says. “This is essential to the real agenda, which is not the assessment, but the organizational transformation necessary to [increase] maturity.”
In many instances, the only way to measure progress is by weighing an organization's current status against an appropriate maturity model, such as PMI‘s Organizational Project Management Maturity Model (OPM3®).
“For most models, a rather clear definition of features has been published which can be checked, and which demonstrate what level of maturity truly prevails,” he says. “Some rather robust metrics have been developed that can be systematically tracked.”
Armed with that data, companies can see their weaknesses—and strengths.
“An assessment can help organizations develop their skills to a point that the conceptualization and implementation of projects becomes a significant differentiator and possibly one of the foundations of sustainable competitive advantages,” Mr. Kross explains.
For maturity to progress properly, organizations must focus on people's behaviors and actions—not just the processes and methods.
That should include taking the “pulse of the people,” including monitoring reactions from project managers and internal stakeholders, says Mr. Ortiz-Müller.
Doing so provides valuable information about where the organization is in terms of maturity—and where it needs to move.
“If you simply provide an excellent methodology and fail to motivate and educate people, nothing happens,” says Mr. Ortiz-Müller. “Combining willingness and ability to do are the fundamentals of any methodology.”
And companies shouldn't necessarily rely on just one maturity model to answer all their needs. Go ahead and do some comparison shopping.
“With the respective focus and advantages of numerous models on maturity out there, it does not make any sense to try to modify an organization in order to fit a specific model,” Mr. Kross says. “Instead, one should filter and adopt the models to reflect what is most appropriate for the organization.”
Getting a clear read on just how mature the organization truly is obviously is important, but the ultimate goal is the ability of the organization to progress.
“This is essential because if an organization is not continually improving, it will be going backward compared to its competition,” Mr. Weaver says. “If you are not improving, they will be—with the inevitable consequences to your bottom line over time.”
TEST TIME
The moment of truth may soon be arriving. With the economy in a slump, organizations may just have to face up to how mature, or immature, they really are.
These days, it can be tempting to slash costs by killing off or postponing projects, compromising quality to meet budgets or laying off staff, says Jimmy Pimentel, PMP, project manager at TD Canada Trust, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
But that could leave an organization with an inadequate project portfolio that eventually could bring more expenses than savings, he says. On the other hand, an organization mature in project management has the tools and metrics to analyze, evaluate and select projects that benefit its strategy.
“A mature project management organization represents a better internal and external customer experience, a reduction of project cost execution and an opportunity to stay competitive,” Mr. Pimentel says.
Soon after he signed on at TD Canada Trust's product project management office (PMO) last year, he recognized it could benefit from a dose of maturity. He presented his idea in September and was authorized by the PMO‘s senior management to move forward.
As part of the quest for maturity, he selected the OPM3 in part because it could be customized. It lets organizations embrace any or all of the disciplines—project, program and portfolio management—to enhance the maturity “in the domain that a PMO or organization really requires,” says Mr. Pimentel.
But he's aware of the potential for pitfalls along the way.
Once a PMO decides which best practices to implement, the decision triggers a series of adjustments— including the modification of project document templates, implementation of new controls or processes, revised career development polices, et cetera.
TIP To get buy-in, organizations have to be inclusive. “The biggest mistake is to leave functional managers out of this discussion. Doing so significantly hampers the ability to achieve organization-wide buy-in to project management policies and processes,” says John Schlichter, OPM Experts LLC, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
And that doesn't always go over well.
“As human beings, it is in our nature to oppose change and these changes are at the core of daily operation for many organizations, he says. “Sustainable success here will depend upon two factors, communication and team effort.”
That's why project managers need the backing of upper management. “Without executive support, it's not possible to initiate a process improvement in an organization,” he says.
But it also takes a commitment from the rank and file.
As far as improvements, Mr. Pimintel says it's too early to call out any advances at this point. The PMO has only gone through the assessment phase and is slated to start the implementation this month.
But with the economy showing no signs of a fast turnaround, it might be test time for TD and every other organization out there. PM