A maturity model can be viewed as a set of structured levels that describe how well the behaviors, practices and processes of an organization can reliably and sustainably produce required outputs and outcomes from projects and programmes (change initiatives).
A maturity model may provide, for example :
- a place to start (baseline to identify required improvements and as an improvement measurement)
- the benefit of a community’s prior experiences
- a common language and a shared vision
- a framework for prioritizing actions.
- a way to define what improvement means for your organization.
A maturity model can be used as a benchmark for comparison and as an aid to understanding – for example, for ‘comparative assessment’ of different organizations where there is something in common, such as the same industry, that can be used as a basis for comparison. This will tell you how “well” you are placed in the rankings with your competitors, but I stress a PMO should be set up to address YOUR specific requirements and they may differ from other companies in your Industry sector or from every other company out there. So please don’t take too much interest in benchmarking yourself against other companies unless you have a valid reason to do so.
There are several industry standards for maturity assessment you could use, with many consulting companies having their own in-house variations based on at least one of these.
I will write more on each of the maturity assessment models/frameworks in further blogs.
The main “Best Practice” maturity models/frameworks you will come across are (in no order of preference):
– P3M3
– OPM3
– CMMI