Before identifying the best practices an organization can adopt to improve project management maturity level we should first define the organization project management and outline how to measure the maturity level. According to (PMI, 2003) organization project management is the effective implementation of strategy via adopting a systematic management of projects, programs and portfolios. Thus the maturity of the organization project management is measured based on the degree to which the organization practices this type of project management and this is represented by the combination of the best practices attained within the project, program, and portfolio areas.
Improving the maturity level of the organization PM could be summarized into two stages:
- Assessing the current maturity level of the organization PM using models such as the OPM3 model which consider several dimensions such as the progression of best practices associated with the project, program and portfolio.
- According to the assessment the organization should obtain the best practices for any prospective improvement effort.
OPM3 has proposed 600 best practices that an organization may adopt to improve its PM maturity level. In my opinion I think the main key here is the standardization of the process starting from the initiation stage, planning (including planning the scope, the estimated budget, the resources....etc.), execution stage, up to the closing process. The next key is team work, all functions should work together to implement standard process. The third key is the PMBK which should be considered as the holy book of project management, managers should integrate the PMBK guide knowledge areas into the organization project management methodology.
The key elements of change management that should be consider when raising PM maturity level as defined by Pettigrew and Whipp (1991) are as following:
- Environmental assessment- the change should satisfy the organization need; hence the selected maturity level should be based on the assessment preformed on the current organization PM maturity.
- Leading change- managers who are leading this change should have the adequate leadership skills to lead the change, in additional the management style should also change to cope with the introduced change.
- Strategic human resources management- HRM should be dedicated to support the change via training and development.
- Linking strategic and operational change- strategic and operational changes must be effectively linked.
The 13 brand actions that were established by the DFCU financial management team to improve the PM of the company were all useful in my opinion however there are certain actions that I think benefits the company more than the others such as giving more responsibilities to the project managers and moving the projects managers from IT to business unit which allow project managers to control projects and most important develop the leadership and management skills of the managers. The other action is developing their project portfolio management by setting and implementing project selection criteria, in additional improve the way projects are ranked and prioritize. The other action is emphasizing the team work culture and motivates the team to share their experience and knowledge.