World Monitor Magazine WM_KIOGE 2018_Web | Page 16

EXPERT OPINION Creating organisational maturity There are many websites, books, training courses or other sources of information available that provide us ways we can improve. We all want to improve our appearance, our job performance, our relationships and so on. Marina Kostanian, Construction Consulting Partner, Deloitte Caspian Region Project managers probably want to be more efficient, and companies too want to increase their return on investment by doing things more professionally and efficiently. In other words, we are all striving for the best, and to succeed we need to have a plan to continuously improve our ability to gather the right tools, build realistic plans and overcome challenges. With all this in mind, let’s take a look at the basic attributes of organizational maturity. The degree to which a business practices project management is referred to as organization project management maturity. There are several management tools and programs available offering guidance on organizational maturity. They are designed to take processes from an unpredictable, somewhat chaotic state to a disciplined system of continuous improvement. With this in mind, it goes without saying that companies with more mature practices find it easier to deliver projects on time and under budget. Most of the models offer the following basic steps to improvement, which are repeated in cycles: • an early learning phase • the integration of lessons learned with processes • the reengineering of business processes • transition to a new phase of maturity • repeat at the next level Some model following: 14 world monitor examples include the • the Organizational Project Management Maturity Model (OPM3) – a Project Management Institute standard detailing knowledge, assessment and improvement elements, and which is generally recognized as the most comprehensive example of project management. • the Crawford Project Management Maturity Model, which discusses five levels of maturity and provides a framework for the continuous improvement of project management skills and results. • ISO 9001:2008 Quality Management Systems by the International Organization for Standardization is a family of standards that although quite detailed are generic enough to be applied across almost all business sectors and industries. Most organizations in Kazakhstan are at the lowest level of progression according to the above models. This can be explained by a typical five-level progression. At Level 1 companies will have a project management process but no structured process or standards. To achieve Level 2, businesses will have to achieve Level 1 and have standard project metrics in place. At Level 3, organizations should have standards and institutionalized processes incorporating project metrics and evaluat- ing performance of portfolio projects. At this Level an organization should be adopt- ing either an earned value management