Step 2: Improving Your Capability Maturity

Last week we looked at the Capability Maturity Model and the process of establishing where your organisation is on it. Once you have established that you can plan what you will need to do to move up the model. But remember that you can only move up one level of maturity at a time so plan on the basis of achievable short-term objectives. 

For example if you decide you are currently at project management level 2: repeatable (you will have documented project management methodologies and a standard project life cycle in place; and you will be involving your project managers in the definition and agreement of these standards). You will now plan to move to level 3: defined. In order to achieve this you will need to carry out the following steps:

1. Establish a project office to maintain the standards and documentation and provide an interface to the project mangers.
2. Obtain management support and authorisation to enforce compliance with the standards and monitor this through the project office.
3. Involve the organisation's project managers in reviewing and improving the standards.

Once you have that in place you are ready to plan for moving to the next level of organisational maturity. Next week we will look in more detail at the steps involved in deploying these project management best practices.