In our increasingly global economy, in which we are all competing with organizations about which we know very little, in parts of the world with which we may not be at all familiar, it is becoming clear that one critical competitive advantage is the ability to translate strategy into organizational success through projects. This means developing not only the facility to accomplish individual projects—as important as this is—but developing an overall organizational orientation toward treating as many endeavors as appropriate as projects, and managing them individually and collectively in such a way as to support the organization’s strategic goals. This approach is what is meant by the term “organizational project management,” which we define as “the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to organizational and project activities to achieve the aims of an organization through projects.” While individual projects may be considered tactical, organizational project management is, by definition, strategic because, used properly, it reflects an organization’s business strategy and provides a high-level perspective and regulation of critical resources that directly impact financial results. Seen in this light, organizational project management is a strategic advantage in this highly competitive economy.

In striving to address these needs, numerous individuals and organizations have developed various models and methodologies to assist organizations with an interest in pursuing this idea of maturity. In 1998, the Project Management Institute—a global membership organization serving over 100,000 members in the project management profession—entered this important arena by chartering the Organizational Project Management Maturity Model (OPM3^TM) Project Team.

Since that time, through extensive research and the input of a significant number of project management practitioners, the OPM3 Project Team has accomplished a number of critical objectives. For example, it has determined:

Together, these Best Practices, Capabilities, Outcomes, and KPIs—along with necessary narrative explanations, navigational guidelines explaining capability aggregation, self-assessment, and description of the organizational project management process—constitute PMI’s Organizational Project Management Maturity Model. The PMI Model is designed to help organizations assess the state of their organizational project management maturity by assisting them in understanding organizational project management, its maturity, and how to assess themselves. Assuming an organization wishes to improve, OPM3 will also help them determine what specific Capabilities they need to achieve the desired Best Practices, so they can advance their agenda while setting priorities for using or applying limited organizational resources.