Improving Project Management Practices

Organizations are beginning to realize that project management is not just a function within the firm but rather a key component to achieving strategic goals and gaining competitive advantages. Unfortunately, organizations are not fully competent in achieving business goals through these projects. According to the PMI Pulse of the Profession report, success rates have fallen from 72% in 2008 to 62% in 2012. It is clear organizations must improve their project management practices.

The need to improve project management practices has driven me to begin studying the project management field of maturity models. This topic with project management is commonly referred to as project management maturity models (PMMM). These maturity models are used to evaluate an organization's project management practices, identify strengths and weaknesses, and determine a improvement plan to increase the effectiveness (less project failures) of their project management practices.

I recently read an article on evaluating PMMMs remindeding me that, when evaluating project management practices, we must expand our focus to not only include projects but also evaluate programs and project portfolios. It is the program and portfolio evaluation where we will be able to better determine the organization's ability to achieve strategic goals. Therefore, based on the increasing appreciation for projects delivering business value, an effective PMMM should include evaluation of programs and portfolios as well as project management practices.

Based on this PMMM study, it appears the Project Management Institute's Organizational Project Management Maturity Model (OPM3) is most effective in evaluating an organization's project practices as they relate to organizational performance. I will have to begin exploring OPM3 to better understand this tool and identify its strengths and weaknesses.