Project Management Maturity Model

Rating:
Summary: Series of four very expensive reference books
Review: This is a review for four books into one review, all published by Marcel and likely released by them as a theme package: two by author J.Kent Crawford - The Project Management Maturity Model, and The Strategic Project Office and two by Frank Toney - The Superior Project Manager and The Superior Project Organization. The information Amazon posts is not the same as the books in terms of copyright and number of pages. My books all show a 2002 publication. Marcel has a fifth one coming out on managing multiple projects.

I do not understand why they charge so much, perhaps because they feel the audience is so limited they have to. The publisher will sell these and the one on multiple projects as a package for a substantial discount. My review below will be positive, but I also found myself irked at not only the high cost, but the duplication of content. Substantial content of each author is duplicated in his companion book. It would have not been a challenge with both authors to have merged the two books into one, and then better justifying the high price. While these four books are an important part of my reference library on project management, my four star rating is because of the cost of each book aggravated by the duplication of content.

Crawford's books are ideal for organizations wanting to adopt a project management maturity model. Their proprietary model mirrors PMI's PMBOK in terms of structure, but adds three important and valuable "special interest components" of Project Office, Management Oversight, and Professional Development. So, for an organization wanting to map their organization's project management maturity to the PMBOK, this model is exceptional well covered in a manner that by just reading the added competencies required at each higher maturity level, you get a sense of the enormous undertaking to increase one maturity level at a time. The three special interest components round out the model because the PMBOK is mostly about individual project best practices/methodologies, whereas Crawford wanted to add organizational issues to include Project Offices. Thus, organization's looking for guidance on their Project Office or PMO would find his two books very useful. The Maturity Model book has large font, is a small book, and mostly duplicated in the other book, but is ideal if you want a dedicated focus on just the maturity model mapped to PMBOK. His Project Office book has outstanding content for the many organizational issues and challenges, but also includes much of the maturity model in the other book. The content of The Strategic Project Office is outstanding, and covers the issues that plaque organizations in developing an environment for project success. If you have a budget for only one of his two, get the Strategic Project Office book.

Toney books offer specific best practices, and again, the content is duplicated to an incredible degree - whole blocks of paragraphs totally duplicated. They are just best practices on the other side of the coin, one for the organization, the other for the project manager. The best practices are highlighted in black boxes, with good content to explain why it is a best practice - so it is not just a listing, but in effect takes you on a journey of many best practices, giving them context to each other. Competency wheels explained in the beginning are potentially very valuable for an organization; I wish there was a tool for this, or added as a CD to justify the incredible cost. If you have a limited budget, the Superior Project Organization is probably the better choice.

Of the two authors, I would say Crawford has more in-depth content, and the cost is half. But as a series of four volumes, if you can get your organization to pay for these, they do make for an outstanding library, and are synergistic in their message. If I were charged with the challenge of taking an organization from a matrix to a strong matrix or project organization, I would clearly invest in all four books. But for individual reading, the cost is a major limitation.

In sum, I would recommend only spending the high cost is if you are focused on maturity modeling, identifying best practices, and trying to move an organization to be a project organization. These books are not a typical read about traditional project management practices, so it is not close to a PM HOW TO book. The books could also be used to study for the PMP, as the PMBOK is very dry reading, and these books would add a real-world context to the PMBOK framework.

For those on a mission within their organization, Creating an Environment for Successful Projects is a must read. This book does a better job of explaining why organization's struggle, but lacks a maturity model to do an assessment.