Martin Training Associates

Project Effective Maturity Model

Most companies have focused their attentions on business processes and ignored projects. Well, everything new that you create or any improvement you make, occurs as a result of a project. Even the implementation of your strategic plan happens through projects. Projects that do not get completed, are late, are over budget, are off target are impeding your progress towards your strategic goals. If you don't manage projects effectively, you'll lose important competitive advantage

So, how do you begin to improve the effectiveness of projects? We use our project effectiveness maturity model (PEMM) to assess where you are on the effectiveness continuum. Most businesses are at level one, the ad hoc/chaos stage, where there is no standard project management process and no defined project steering process. (The project steering process is the process that the management team uses to select, prioritize, allocate resources and oversee the portfolio of projects.) In order to move to level two, Standardization, you need to do the following:

Steps
Level Two Standardization
1 Chose a standard PM method.
2 Make sure project leaders are using basic project management skills.
3 Make sure sponsors are writing charters for all new projects.
4 Have project teams use basic project management templates.
 


Level two creates the basis for developing a core competency in project management across the organization. As you begin to move to level three, Core Competency, you'll to need spread the training process for basic project management skills to project team members, and continue the development of your project leader's skills. In addition, you'll need to establish the rudiments of a project steering process, which should be run by the project steering council (a subset of the management team). At level three, every manager in the organization accepts accountability for the effectiveness of the organization's portfolio of projects.

Not at level three or even level two yet? Well, you're not alone. You can improve the way in which you create new products and services (either for external or internal consumption) or improve existing ones by improving your organization's capacity to do projects well.

We'll be discussing what management needs to do to improve the performance of projects in this Executive Corner column. In the meantime, if you need some consulting or training help to implement project management practices, please give us a call.