Using the Project Management Maturity Model, 3rd Edition

CHAPTER 2The Need to Plan for Project Management Maturity

Introduction

In today’s business world, project management has become the primary vehicle for achieving strategic objectives, realizing business benefits, and creating business value. Project management is treated in many firms as one of the four or five strategic competencies, necessary for the long-term survival of the firm, rather than as just another career-path position. Therefore, it is expected that companies will look for project management maturity models to help them become better at using project management delivery systems. Unfortunately, this is not as easy as it appears. More than 30 project management maturity models (PMMMs) are in the marketplace. There is some commonality among several of the models, but there are also significant differences. Selecting the right PMMM for your industry and type of business requires careful consideration.

Companies can grow in project management practices by capturing lessons learned and best practices. Most companies use internally generated lessons learned and best practices to improve on the processes, forms, guidelines, templates, and checklists that make up the project management methodology. PMMMs can achieve the same effect and identify windows of improvement opportunities at a faster rate. PMMMs can also be used to measure improvements in both tangible and intangible assets.

The Need for a PMMM

The purpose of the PMMM is to assess the execution of the delivery ...