Inter-organisational issues facing implementation of project management maturity

Abstract

Repetitive project failures or underperformance and ever increasing competition have given impetus for the need to drastically improve project performance within professional services organisations. This realisation has prompted actions to drive restitution efforts to enhance successful delivery and overall project management throughout the organisation. However, the desired outcomes to improve project management processes at an organisational level have not always been forthcoming in light of improvement activities implemented through various changes in operating procedures. The purpose of study is to investigate and identify, from an intra-organisational perspective, the factors required to bring about enhanced implementation and continuous improvements in project management processes; and to determine how they must be aligned to a successful strategy implementation for attainment of higher states of organisational project management maturity. The study focuses on project intensive organisations, mainly implementing information communication technology (ICT), business services and financial related projects. Through the use of a literature review, augmented by a quantitative survey, the perceived impacts and values of the determined factors on project management maturity were gathered. The research study shows that companies wanting to improve project management maturity must steer away from focussing only on certain processes, but must take a holistic view, encompassing a variety of internal factors, ranging from components of organisational learning, to change management and strategy implementation. The identified factors will provide impetus for organizations to create and leverage the drivers, fostering a climate for continuous project performance improvements and ultimately giving them the ability for moving to higher levels of maturity.