Using the Project Management Maturity Model, 3rd Edition

CHAPTER 14 Case Studies

Case 1: Simone Engineering Company

Simone Engineering was an engineering component manufacturing firm as well as an engineering consulting company. Simone had an excellent reputation for stakeholder relations management practices, product quality, and customer service.

On all projects above a certain dollar value, sponsorship was performed by the executive levels of management. The executive sponsors were responsible for stakeholder relations management; and, on some projects, only the sponsors handled direct communications with stakeholders and clients. On these projects, project managers met with the stakeholders and clients only during the stakeholder/client interface meetings.

Even though project management existed in the firm and worked reasonably well, most of the business decisions for projects were made by the project sponsors. Project managers often believed that they were simply performing as puppets, even though the company provided project management training courses that followed effective project management practices as stated in the PMBOK^® Guide.¹

Although Simone often received single-source and sole-source procurement contracts, much of its business was obtained through competitive bidding. Simone never had any issues responding to a request for proposal (RFP) until now. This client stated in the RFP that all bidders must show how mature they were in project management using a PMMM, and that the report from the PMMM must be no more than ...