Project, Program, and Portfolio Maturity Level measurement model
Author: Reem Al-Zamil
Project Management Consultant
It has become fashionable today to hear about the need for (project managers) and the establishment of many governmental or private agencies (project management offices), and day by day the demand for professional certificates in the field of project management increases.
The concept of project management is not modern, and it flourished in the nineties, as organizations adopted the PRINCE2 methodology and was a required certification and relied upon by many entities as an indicator of a person’s competence, but with time and practice, the authorities realized that the successful management of any project requires more than just training for project managers. Processes, standards, policies, and procedures ensure integration with all systems and departments within the organization in order to operate efficiently and effectively.
Establishing an integrated project management system cannot be done easily, building a mature system may take several years, and the P3M3 model is one of the most important models adopted to measure the level of maturity of the organization in the field of managing portfolios, programs, and projects.
When did P3M3 start?
P3M3 is owned by Axelos, which is a joint venture between the UK government and Capita that acquired the materials in January 2014. Prior to that, P3M3 was owned by the Office of Government Trade (OGC), a division within the UK government whose role is to help public sector organizations improve their efficiency, This department has produced a set of methodologies and frameworks such as PRINCE2 ™, Managing Successful Programs (MSP), Risk Management (M_o_R®) and the Information Technology Best Practices Framework, ITIL®.
In 2003, OGC released its first draft of the Program and Project Management Maturity Model (P3M3). The model was revised and officially published in February 2006 after incorporating the latest maturity modeling practices and working with a group of professional consultants and practitioners as well as accreditation partner APM Group.
3 releases of P3M3 version 1 were released in 2005 – this model worked on the premise that organizational maturity started with project management, then moved to program management as portfolio management matured coming at the highest level of maturity version 2 was released in 2008 – this included Version 7 perspectives and created a model that acknowledged that project, program, and portfolio maturity was not incremental and enabled each model to be assessed independently. Version 3 was released in 2015
What is the importance of P3M3 certification for organizations?
P3M3 improves the performance of organizations by measuring the maturity level of key processes, and thus contributes to:
- Identifying weaknesses and development fields, whether at the level of individuals’ capabilities or processes.
- Right financial management and budgetary predictability.
- Improving the project/program work cycle.
- Increasing productivity and improving the quality of project outputs.
- Increase customer satisfaction.
- Increase employee loyalty.
- Increase the return on investment.
- Schedule improvement.
What is the P3M3 Portfolio, Program, and Project Management Maturity Model?
Portfolio, Program and Project Management Maturity Model (P3M3) is a framework that enables the organization to measure its current performance, identify strengths and weaknesses, and develop development plans to improve the organization’s performance in the future, so-called because it does not consider the effectiveness of project management separately, but rather measures the relationship between portfolio management (PfM3). ), Program Management (PgM3) and Project Management (PjM3).
It is an integrated measurement framework because it measures all the key administrative processes (KPA) distributed according to the organization’s hierarchy, and the main processes that are measured are:
- Management Control
- Benefits Management
- Financial Management
- Stakeholders Engagement
- Risk Management
- Organization Governance
- Resources Management
What maturity levels does the P3M3 include?
- The first level (Process Perception) – when the organization has an understanding of a specific procedure, and this procedure is applied to a specific project because of the efficiency of the working personnel, and not because the procedure is generally dependent on all the organization’s operations and actions.
- The second level (repeat operations) – when the organization has a set of operations that are applied to a specific project or program, and the level of performance in this project or program is better than others, but not all of the organization’s operations work according to defined and defined procedures and processes.
- The third level (definition of processes) – when the organization works according to specific, documented and knowledgeable procedures and processes, and there is an (owner) for each procedure to ensure the application of the approved processes and procedures, and often at this level, there is an integration or integration with other systems in the organization.
- Fourth Level (Operations Management) – At this level the procedures are tight and measurable, enabling the organization to obtain quantitative data that give readings that help measure the level of the organization’s performance.
- Fifth level (process improvement) – at this level it enables the organization to obtain quantitative data that gives future readings about the organization’s needs at the level of competencies and capabilities to overcome the challenges of any future projects.
How does P3M3 assessment contribute to improving the organization’s performance?
One of the advantages of maturity models is that they begin to measure the main processes in a hierarchical manner, which allows for accurate identification of strengths, weaknesses and opportunities for development. The process of measuring the maturity level takes place through four steps as follows:
Step 1 – Where are you today?
The best way to find out the current level of the organization is to conduct a self-assessment (setting a baseline) by observing the way the different processes are being implemented and through various interviews with the stakeholders in the organization.
Step 2 – Where would you like to be?
It is not necessary for all organizations to be at the fifth level of maturity, and the level of maturity targeted for the organization varies according to the size of the organization and the type of sector in which it operates, for example an organization specializing in research and innovation, it is important to achieve a high level of maturity in the field of project management, compared to an organization operating in The retail sector does not focus on achieving a high level of individual capabilities.
The result that determines the level of the organization today (Step #1) helps in setting realistic goals for the organization, i.e., definitely, the target level varies according to the type of major operations.
Step 3 – How will you get there
Experience has shown that raising maturity by one level takes anywhere from 3 to 12 months. The recommended approach to improving operations capacity is to appoint process owners. For example, you can assign one person to lead the improvement in developing a business case and managing benefits, and another to manage the improvement and manage requirements. It is important to prepare an improvement roadmap, using models such as Six Sigma, to identify priorities for improvement.
And don’t forget that improvement means a change in processes, policies, standards, functions, or reporting structures, you will change the way some people work. Therefore, any improvement initiative should be treated as a change initiative.
Step 4 – How will you know?
KPIs are the best way to know the feasibility and impact of improvement initiatives on the organization’s performance, and because the first step was setting a (baseline), then in the fourth step, you can measure the impact by comparing (baseline) with what was achieved after implementing improvement initiatives. Therefore, regardless of the maturity of your baseline, it is recommended that an improvement roadmap identifies the metrics that must be gathered to demonstrate performance improvement.
Not only will the creation of KPIs enable organizations to determine when they have achieved their goal, but it can also be used to demonstrate the business case for the process improvement journey (i.e. what’s your return on capacity investment?
If your KPIs demonstrate that you have achieved the required level of maturity, then you can use these numbers for proactive purposes to promote the level of professionalism of your organization and its ability to improve its performance and reach high levels of maturity using the P3M3 model.
How does an organization get P3M3 certification?
The organization must be evaluated by an AXELOS-certified consultancy and the agency has a certified P3M3 consultant, and we are proud of Empower as a certified partner with Axelos to evaluate facilities inside and outside the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and to award the P3M3 certification. Empower services are not limited to evaluation and certification, but rather we offer a series One of the consulting and development solutions that raise the professional level in managing portfolios, programs and projects.
