PM World Today Letters To The Editor
Letters to the Editor are comments on the Editorials, Viewpoints column or other project management notices that appear in issues of the Project Management World Today.
Tuesday, July 13, 2004
An Observation On The Current Status of Corporate Implementation of The PMI OPM3
Craig
I have not been able to get anyone connected with OPM3 in practice to write an objective "hands on" observation on this latest PMI product and its value to business..I attended the IPMA World Congress Budapest a few weeks ago and I reported in the PM World Today July-August 2004 PM Perspective Section...
"At the International Project Management's World Congress in Budapest,Hungary Harry Stefanou, the Project Management Institute's Research Manager, made a detailed presentation of a new Organizational Project Management Maturity Model (OPM3) . Harry clarified what the model was about and its structure of project management best practices and multi questions. This very large questionnaire is used to arrive at a measure of how well an organization might fare when measured against a pre-determined set of project management "best practices", and how well an organization meets or
lacks these practices.
My inital assessment was that the listing of questions is a useful audit device but that one had to be careful to assume that a measure of organizational maturity was automatically determined. One flaw in the model pointed out by Professor Reich of Simon Fraser University was that a yes-no situation for each audit question when real life was not like that. Professor Reich suggested that each question have a range of goodness so
that the condition of the best practice was presented.Others pointed out that there was no accomodation of proprietary best practices. "
One of your principles Mark Mullaly attended the same presentation by Harry Stefanou, the PMI Research Director and he should be able to provide you with a personal observation on the structure and corporate value of the OPM3. Should you get some "hands on" corporate experience with the PMI OPM3 I would be pleased to publish any brief or viewpoint that you might wish to share with the global PMFORUM Community of Practice.
Keep in touch and the PMFORUM up to date on what is happening in your world of project management.
David
Editor PM World Today
http://www.pmforum.org/
I have not been able to get anyone connected with OPM3 in practice to write an objective "hands on" observation on this latest PMI product and its value to business..I attended the IPMA World Congress Budapest a few weeks ago and I reported in the PM World Today July-August 2004 PM Perspective Section...
"At the International Project Management's World Congress in Budapest,Hungary Harry Stefanou, the Project Management Institute's Research Manager, made a detailed presentation of a new Organizational Project Management Maturity Model (OPM3) . Harry clarified what the model was about and its structure of project management best practices and multi questions. This very large questionnaire is used to arrive at a measure of how well an organization might fare when measured against a pre-determined set of project management "best practices", and how well an organization meets or
lacks these practices.
My inital assessment was that the listing of questions is a useful audit device but that one had to be careful to assume that a measure of organizational maturity was automatically determined. One flaw in the model pointed out by Professor Reich of Simon Fraser University was that a yes-no situation for each audit question when real life was not like that. Professor Reich suggested that each question have a range of goodness so
that the condition of the best practice was presented.Others pointed out that there was no accomodation of proprietary best practices. "
One of your principles Mark Mullaly attended the same presentation by Harry Stefanou, the PMI Research Director and he should be able to provide you with a personal observation on the structure and corporate value of the OPM3. Should you get some "hands on" corporate experience with the PMI OPM3 I would be pleased to publish any brief or viewpoint that you might wish to share with the global PMFORUM Community of Practice.
Keep in touch and the PMFORUM up to date on what is happening in your world of project management.
David
Editor PM World Today
http://www.pmforum.org/
On Experience With The Application of PMI's OPM3
Although I found John's ( John Schlichter - An Insiders's View of the OPM3 - July-August 2004 PM World Today )article interesting, I am still craving examples, case studies and first hand experiences from companies who have successfully utilized the OPM3. As a PM consultant, I want to know what the rest of the world thinks about the OPM3, not just
those who designed it or are selling services related to it.
Currently, little, if any, constructive debate has taken place inside the PM community on the merits of PMI's latest product. Cutting out all the marketing hype from PMI and the consulting companies promoting it, leaves one with little constructive information on the use and effectiveness of the tool.
Why is this important? As a PM consultant, who has bought the OPM3,read it and done a self-assessment, I am left wondering, "Why bother?" (And no, it's not because I haven't taken training in the OPM3 - I have been working with baseline assessments for some years).
From my perspective, the OPM3 has many problems. Chief among my many concerns are:
1. It lacks any rigour. The documentation does not tell me anything I didn't already know. There is nothing new here.
2. The survey methodology is far too simplistic. The questions are YES/NO answer - there is no in-between. You are either pregnant or you not.
Before my company begins to offer the product to its clients, I need to see the real value. How can I take this to a client when I lack the confidence in the assessment? I have been looking for information on the OPM3 and talking to people in the PM community
and, to date, I have not heard of anyone who has successfully completed an assessment using the OPM3. Yes, I understand the product is relatively new, but to date, I haven't seen any real debate on the merits of the OPM3.
Sincerely,
Craig Curran-Morton
Interthink Consulting
Edmonton, Canada
Craig Curran-Morton
those who designed it or are selling services related to it.
Currently, little, if any, constructive debate has taken place inside the PM community on the merits of PMI's latest product. Cutting out all the marketing hype from PMI and the consulting companies promoting it, leaves one with little constructive information on the use and effectiveness of the tool.
Why is this important? As a PM consultant, who has bought the OPM3,read it and done a self-assessment, I am left wondering, "Why bother?" (And no, it's not because I haven't taken training in the OPM3 - I have been working with baseline assessments for some years).
From my perspective, the OPM3 has many problems. Chief among my many concerns are:
1. It lacks any rigour. The documentation does not tell me anything I didn't already know. There is nothing new here.
2. The survey methodology is far too simplistic. The questions are YES/NO answer - there is no in-between. You are either pregnant or you not.
Before my company begins to offer the product to its clients, I need to see the real value. How can I take this to a client when I lack the confidence in the assessment? I have been looking for information on the OPM3 and talking to people in the PM community
and, to date, I have not heard of anyone who has successfully completed an assessment using the OPM3. Yes, I understand the product is relatively new, but to date, I haven't seen any real debate on the merits of the OPM3.
Sincerely,
Craig Curran-Morton
Interthink Consulting
Edmonton, Canada
Craig Curran-Morton
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