© UCT/GetSmarter

MODULE 8 UNIT 1
What is organisational
maturity and OPM3?
Table of Contents
1. Introduction ................................................................................................................. 3
2. Traditional measures of Organisational Maturity .......................................................... 3
3. What is Organisational Project Management (OPM) maturity? ...................................... 5
4. What is OPM3? ............................................................................................................ 6
4.1 Organisational lifecycles .................................................................................................. 7
4.2 OPM3 practitioner knowledge and skills......................................................................... 8
5. Summary ..................................................................................................................... 9
6. References ................................................................................................................. 10

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LO1: Define organisational maturity and recall traditional maturity measurement models.

LO2: Describe the purpose and benefits of OPM3.

1. Introduction
Successful contemporary organisations are able to translate their business strategy into
organisational success through a project-based approach. The last few modules in this
course have looked at how organisations can select and manage the right projects,
programmes and project portfolios needed to successfully deliver their organisational
strategy. To accomplish this, an organisation needs to understand the specific organisational
project management-related practices, knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques that have
consistently proven to be effective. The ability to identify and fully utilise these practices is
an indication of an organisation’s level of project management maturity (PMI, 2013).

This unit will consider the meaning of organisational maturity by looking at traditional
models used to measure the maturity levels of organisations. It will then explore
organisational project management maturity and introduce the purpose and benefits of the
PMI’s Organisational Project Management Maturity Model, or OPM3, which will be covered
in more detail in Unit 2.

2. Traditional measures of organisational maturity

Traditionally, businesses have always strived to improve their level of performance and
effectiveness in order to continuously increase competitiveness and profitability. As a means
of achieving higher levels of maturity, organisations have gradually applied different models
for measuring their own performance against industry best practices. For example,
businesses in the Information Technology (IT) industry have used the Capability Maturity
Model Integration (CMMI), which uses indicators such as consistency, scalability,
predictability and continuous process improvement to measure the maturity level of an
organisation (Charter, 2006).

Figure 1 shows the CMMI. In terms of the model’s five levels, an organisation at the lowest
level of maturity relies mostly on the work of individuals, which can deliver unpredictable
results. At the second level, the organisation has improved the management of its work,
which then becomes repeatable in project teams. Upon reaching level three, the
organisation is able to define clear standards and consistently apply these across all
divisions. At the fourth level, the organisation achieves predictable performance through the
use of quantitative and qualitative metrics. When the organisation reaches level five, it has
developed the ability for continuous improvement and optimisation, thereby performing at
the highest level of maturity (Charter, 2006).

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 Figure 1: The Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) (Source: Charter, 2006).

The Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) has been quite popular in the IT
industry. More recently however, organisations including the PMI, have highlighted that the
CMMI is not necessarily an effective roadmap for a business seeking to measure and
improve its organisational maturity level.

The reason for the varying degrees of effectiveness of the CMMI is that the model follows
a heavily structured approach to developing and improving processes and systems. Along
this path, organisations often develop their capabilities to the point where they become
unwieldy, resulting in systems and processes that are so focused on being efficiently
managed that they actually become unnecessarily complex and difficult to adapt to change.

Note:
The term “organisation” does not necessarily refer to an entire company, agency,
association, or society. It may refer to business units, functional groups or departments.

While some organisations may well benefit from developing their capabilities according to
such models, many organisations that operate in the business project management
environment cannot afford to have rigid processes that deny them the ability to be agile,
adaptable, flexible and innovative.

The CMMI is, however, only one of many models used to measure organisational maturity
levels. The next section will explore organisational project management maturity and the
purpose and benefits of the PMI’s Organisational Project Management Maturity Model
(OPM3) in particular.

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3. What is Organisational Project Management (OPM)
maturity?
According to the PMI (2013), Organisational Project Management (OPM) maturity refers to
the level to which organisations have developed in terms of effectively utilising project
portfolio, programme and project management. It also relates to the organisational-enabling
practices for consistently and predictably delivering organisational strategy to produce
better performance, better results, and a sustainable competitive advantage.

To understand OPM, and the need to develop it to a mature state, consider the relationship
between the elements in Figure 2.

Figure 2: The relationship between OPM and other organisational elements (PMI, 2013)

Every organisation has a unique vision and mission to communicate its beliefs. As the
organisation’s guiding principles, the vision and mission represent what the organisation
stands for and what it intends to accomplish for its customers and other stakeholders.

From this, the organisation determines specific strategies and objectives that need to be
achieved to fulfil its mission and vision. Effective alignment between the vision, mission,
organisational strategy and objectives forms the overall strategy, which is the most
important element in determining the success of the organisation.

Once a strategic plan is established, the strategy is then sub-divided into a set of initiatives
influenced by market dynamics, customer and partner requests, shareholders, government
regulations, resource capacity, and competitor plans and actions. Having established a set of

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initiatives that aligns with its strategy, and by extension its vision, mission and objectives,
the organisation then determines how to prioritise and resource these initiatives. Following
this process, the organisation will have various project portfolios, programmes, projects
and operations aligned with its strategic plan.

It is important to remember that project portfolios, programmes, projects, and operations

differ in how they contribute to the achievement of strategic goals (PMI, 2013):

• A project portfolio includes projects, programmes, sub-portfolios, and operations

that are managed together. Project portfolio management focuses on reviewing
projects and programmes to prioritise resource allocation and ensure continued
alignment with the organisation’s strategic objectives.

• A programme includes a group of related projects, sub-programmes and

programme activities that are managed in a coordinated way. A project may or
may not be part of a programme, but a programme will always have projects.
Programme management focuses on project interdependencies to ensure that the
programme requirements are met, as well as to obtain the benefits and control not
available by managing projects individually.

• A project is a temporary initiative with clear deliverables that support the needs of
its parent portfolio, as well as the broader organisational strategy. Successful
project management is achieved by effectively applying the project management
processes covered in Courses 1, 2 and 3.

By developing their Organisational Project Management (OPM) maturity level, organisations

can advance their capabilities by linking project portfolio, programme and project
management principles and practices with organisational enablers (e.g. structural, cultural,
technological, and human resource practices) to support strategic goals.

To accomplish this, an organisation would typically first need to measure its current
capabilities, thereby identifying strengths and areas for improvement. This can be done
using the PMI’s Organisational Project Management Maturity Model (OPM3).

4. What is OPM3?
OPM3 is a model that guides organisations in delivering strategy through clearly linked
project portfolios, programmes and projects. Similar to the Capability Maturity Model
Integration (CMMI) covered in section 2, OPM3 aims to improve organisational project
management processes and systems to the point where these are well understood,
repeatable and predictable. The difference with OPM3, however, is that it highlights
opportunities for more flexible and adaptable management systems.

OPM3 is said to support organisations of different types, sizes, complexity and geographic
location regardless of age or maturity (PMI, 2013). OPM3 can benefit organisations,
management, governance bodies, project management offices or Project Offices (covered in
Module 9), organisational project management consultants, process improvement experts,
change agents, department managers and those engaged in project management activities.

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According to the PMI, the benefits from applying OPM3 can include (PMI, 2013):

• Greater market share;

• Improved competitive advantage;

• Improved customer satisfaction and retention;

• Improved time to market;

• Increased productivity;

• Operational effectiveness;

• Predictable delivery performance;

• Reduced cost and rework, and

• Stronger linkage between strategy and execution.

4.1 Organisational lifecycles

As mentioned earlier, OPM3 is said to support all organisations, regardless of where they are
in their organisational lifecycle. According to the PMI (2013), the lifecycle of an organisation
can include three distinct phases. These stages are illustrated in Figure 3 and explained
below:

1. Birth or startup phase: Organisations that have just formed or are starting new lines
of business or services are said to be in the birth or startup phase. These
organisations can use the OPM3 best practices to determine which domains,
processes, and capabilities should be established for successful strategy execution.

2. Growth phase: An organisation in the growth phase often needs to manage more
projects, with more resources, in order to sustain its growth. These organisations
can use OPM3 to enhance the maturity of their project delivery systems by
developing consistent practices, often led by a Project Office (covered in Module 9).

3. Maturity phase: Organisations in this phase will have achieved their goals, for
example capturing the market share, and can use OPM3 as a means to sustain their
competitive advantage. They are able to use OPM3 to measure and validate their
capabilities while seeking continuous improvement to sustain their competitive
edge.

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 Figure 3: The phases of the organisational lifecycle (source: PMI, 2013).

As shown in Figure 3, at certain stages of the organisational lifecycle, a business might find
itself on a path of decline when it is unable to develop its capability to evolve to the next
phase. Organisations with declining business performance can use OPM3 as a diagnostic tool
to better understand the implementation of organisational project management and how to
reverse their downward performance trend. Using OPM3 as a diagnostic tool is important
and should be undertaken as soon as data trends suggest that a decline is approaching.

4.2 OPM3 practitioner knowledge and skills

Should an organisation want to assess its OPM3 status, a specialist skill is required and is a
service offered by the PMI. To carry out this assessment, an OPM3 practitioner should have
expertise in all of the following areas:

• The latest editions of PMI’s project portfolio, programme and project standards.
This includes having expertise in all relevant methods and techniques, for both
quantitative and qualitative measures.

• Process management and continuous process improvement. The OPM3

practitioner should be competent in process definition, development,
maintenance, control and improvement with respect to the size and complexity of
the organisation.

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 • Strategic alignment. An effective OPM3 practitioner is required to understand the
organisation’s strategic goals and priorities and how the project portfolio,
programme and project structures support them.

• Ability to conduct assessments. The OPM3 practitioner should have knowledge

and experience in assessing the performance of particular processes, as well as
drawing conclusions and making recommendations on the assessment conducted.

• Ability to engage stakeholders. An effective OPM3 practitioner interacts with

people at different levels to understand and influence their expectations.

• Risk management. The OPM3 practitioner should be well versed in opportunity

and threat management.

• Consulting experience. An effective OPM3 practitioner is required to possess

business acumen. They should have knowledge of relevant markets, the customer
base, legal and regulatory environments, and appropriate codes of conduct, as well
as experience in working with executives, managers, and other internal and
external stakeholders.

• Business skills. The OPM3 practitioner should be capable of adapting to divergent

organisational decision-making models. This requires excellent proficiency in
project management hard and soft skills and related competencies covered in this
course.

5. Summary
An organisation looking to enhance its project management capability can utilise the
established OPM3 model. This could not only provide a useful framework but also the
possibility of assistance from specialist consultants. The growth of extended administrative
procedures and techniques is a main concern, which might stifle creativity and agility when
managing projects.

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6. References
Charter, M. (2006). The Project Management Value Question. PMI Global Congress
Proceedings: Seattle Washington.

Project Management Institute (PMI). (2013). Organisational Project Management Maturity

Model (OPM3) – Third Edition. USA: Project Management Institute, Inc.

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