TOP Ideas

To understand project delivery capability maturity, think in terms of the knowledge, skills, tools and other support mechanisms required in the following four scenarios.

Scenario 1
If you plan to build a shed in the garden, you’ll require only basic tools, skills and knowledge. Any handyman-type person can do it.

Scenario 2
If you plan to build your own one-storey home, you’ll now require more advanced tools, skills and knowledge. Not everyone is capable of building their own home.

Scenario 3
If you plan to build a three-storey office/apartment block, you’ll need specialist tools and even more skills and knowledge. Many of those who would happily take on building their own home would not want to tackle a multi-storey building.

Scenario 4
If you plan to build a forty-storey office/apartment block in new materials — even those with well-honed building skills can find themselves out of their depth as they try to adjust to the (unknown) challenges of the new way of building and its effects. Builders taking on this task really have to be capable.

These scenarios illustrate the different levels of capability needed for different types of (in this case building) projects. The same principle applies to all projects.

Organizations that are good at building residential housing are not necessarily good at building high-rise office blocks. (Many have tried and failed.) The skills, knowledge and required processes are different.

However, high-rise builders can still build residential houses. A builder’s capability level, therefore, determines which markets they can compete in. Builders who move outside their capability constraints usually fail.

Your organization’s project delivery capability maturity level determines your future.

Most people can deliver short, simple projects.

But as the size, duration and complexity of projects increase the demands in terms of competencies, tools, knowledge, experience and processes also increases. Approaches adequate for, say, medium-sized single-focused projects are not adequate for, say, large-scale multi-organizational change projects.

Organizations that struggle with innovation projects now will understand this is because their project delivery capability is not mature enough to cope with challenges involved.

Our research has found that project delivery capability ‘matures’ through five progressive levels.

The problem today is that few organizations actually know what their project delivery capability delivery maturity level is. But to not know this is to ‘fly blind’ in terms of what projects you are taking on and whether you are likely to be successful.

So, what is happening today is that organizations are taking on more challenging and complex projects without a commensurate increase in their project delivery capability. This mismatch leads to expensive disasters!

Our research found those organizations that actively focus on developing their project delivery capability realize exponentially greater results for less cost. This, in turn, gives them a sustainable competitive cost advantage.

Project delivery capability is the next competitive battleground .