Reference no: EM13217224

Organizations are facing larger and more frequent changes in the current economic climate plus a changing marketplace, empowered workforce and technological advancements which have created an environment where change is becoming 'business as usual' (Prosci, 2004). Organizations must adapt to these changes to be able to stay afloat and remain competitive.Organizations must embrace key practices to support their PM approach and also adopt elements of change management to enhance their project management (PM) culture.

In today's global clime of PM, organizations now recognize the benefits of setting maturity-level goals for the purpose of achieving and improving their PM culture which will impact and improve their PM maturity level. Several approaches abound such as: P3M3 (OGC, 2010), P2MM (PRINCE 2, 2012), and the spiderweb model (Morris and Pinto, 2007, p.269). Ghorbanali et al(2013) recommend the OPM3 five-step model. The array of available PM models provides organizations with variety of options to choose from.

However, two critical steps are necessary for every organization: assessing the current level attained by the organization, andchoosing the desired maturity level to attain. The assessment should reflect the specific characteristics of the maturity model selected. Organizations should compare their own processes to the characteristics at required maturity level as this will help them track the progressive advancement of their PM and also aid its comparison with the PM model selected. Once assessment is concluded, Kerzner (2010, p.533) opines that "an organization can identify actions for continuous improvement in managing projects/programs" which will include getting rid of weaknesses identified and improve processes that are slow to attain the desired robustness. Knowledge and information sharing amongst team members is certain to facilitate improvement of the PM maturity.

Several practices abound which could be utilized to ensure successful change introduction (Tiernam, Morley and Foley, 2006, p.481-482). Below are elements of change management key to raising PM maturity level:

• Environmental assessment: a vigorous assessment of the organization's internal and external needs should precede the introduction of change and the change introduced should address the needs, and the solution found should be customized.
• Leading change: Support of senior executives plus strong leadership and management style are crucial to a successful change management. Commitment, zeal and thoroughness will power the process.
• Strategic human resources management: should flow with the strategic change. Training and development of human resources could be a suitable catalyst for PM maturity improvements.
• Linking strategic and operational change: is a pre-requisite for smooth introduction of change. Detailed standardized procedures should be used at the operational level to enhance proper linkage.

According to Prosci (2004) "it is important to integrate PM and change management from beginning "to the point where they are not separable." This will improve change management competency and completely integrate change management into PM.

To consolidate their culture/principles, DFCU Financial came up with a list of 13 Brand Actions. They established project responsibility by moving the PM out of IT and pairing the PM with the business unit manager which provided the desired project leadership that yielded better results. Linking project goals to the organization's business strategy made it mandatory for them to select only those projects that add value to and align with the organization's business strategy. Collaboration among team members fostered teamwork and team spirit which enabled project teams to achieve better results.

Both corporate and divisional projects are tracked and monthly reports are prepared and sent to senior executives.

Limited resources are applied to critical and priority projects. Quality and empowerment didn't make as much impact. Same could be said of the rest.