P3M3, what is the priority

This maturity model is very well known by the project/program/portfolio community and one of the questions I would like to ask, is: once we have done an assessment of the situation we have in our project, program or portfolio, where should I start with? We all have limited resources and we cannot fix all.

The classical view of the assessment summarizes the situation with this view:

The immediate answer that comes to my mind is to start with the less matured aspects. But is this the right criteria? Am I taking into account all relevant aspects?

If we organize the report taking into account the value for the cutomer (which could be a customer, the steering committee or the PMO) we could have a situation as this:

Our goal is to increase the maturity of the execution of these areas, so the black lines just mark the desired trend we want to give to it. We have limited resources, and to set the right priority is key to maximize the improvement.

• The vertical position of each area represents the priority of our customer.
• The horizontal position represents the level of maturity of each area.
• The blue lines represents the latest desired trends or “urgent” priorities marked by the customer.
• I have highlighted in red, yellow, green the initial priorities we should take into account for the actions to be done.
• Special attention of risk management, that, even do that it is more mature of others, it has a high relevance on the benefits management of the program. The improvement on this area will improve the benefits management and the stakeholder engagement.
• Special attention to Financial Management: initially it’s not a high relevance topic, but the fact that we are closing a fiscal year, makes it important to understand how we are.

Now the difficult side of our real life: Define the actions by area to be launched, performed, measured and communicated.