Project Management Guide and Project Management Maturity Models as Generic Tools Capable for Diverse Applications

Introduction

Capability is the ability to demonstrate one’s skill to carry out the given responsibility in a given environment, with the given resources in the required period to achieve the required outcome. Maturity is the state of development with all faculties capable of functioning at optimal level of capability. With these two principles in hand, project management (PM), as all management principles, is about getting work done through other people (Drucker, 1999). Project management maturity models (PM3s), on the other hand, are generic tools which are designed to measure the approximate level of balanced state of the organization’s capability and capacity to manage projects, with the implicit view that more mature organizations are better able to manage projects with improved results, more consistently and predictably. Over the last decade, PM education and project management professional (PMP) certification have continued to increase tremendously, with a growth of almost 10% year-on-year of active PMP certificate holders evidences by PMI Today (2018). The PMI official monthly magazine revealed a trend that had persisted over the last decade with 184,180 new PMP certificate holders, showing a staggering 28% growth over the last three years, until March 2018. This worldwide growth trend has also been experienced by the countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, in particular Malaysia, where the official statistics of PMI Malaysia Chapter membership had more than doubled, from 400 to 1,000 (www.pmi.org.my). Similarly, with Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.

Further, researchers have found a clear correlation between higher PM maturity level and improved organizational performance. Indeed, Nieto-Rodriguez and Evrard’s (2004) global survey Boosting Business Performance through PPM had showed “higher PM maturity level will in most cases deliver superior performance in terms of overall project delivery and business benefits” (p.9). It is unclear however, if this survey on business benefits included client satisfaction, a factor that PMBOK (2017) identified as a key performance indicator (KPI) of organizational success.

Papke-Shields et al. (2009) also found the level of use of PM practices did indeed relate to project success but also observed substantial variation in the relative use of different methods which in their studies meant specific PM practices (p.1). They reiterated that PM maturity should not only assess the availability of the PM tools and techniques, but also if they have in fact been using them in their PM practice. The increase in PM education/certification and researchers continuing to confirm that PM maturity does enhance organization performance do not seem to have improved the PM3 market penetration rate nor have convinced the PM community of PM3 and PM generic capability.