... As part of its 9th annual Best Practice Showcase, APMG-International took the opportunity to celebrate London Underground’s (LU) recent achievement, reaching Level 3 of the P3M3® Maturity Model. On behalf of LU, Mike Strzelecki, Director of Safety and Doug Norman, Head of the Centre of Excellence accepted the award, presented by Mike Ward, director of Outperform, the Accredited Consulting Organization which assessed LU.
The award is only presented to organizations with well defined project management capability, indicating that a consistent set of processes is used across all projects. LU matured two levels in three and a half years, saving the taxpayer £422 million. These savings are set to increase as the programme continues. LU’s programme involves upgrading and maintaining the operation of the railway, currently carrying over a billion passengers every year.
Mike Ward, director, Outperform, stated, “Few companies maintain the momentum of change that LU has achieved. Moving up one level in maturity is not uncommon, but moving up almost three levels is very rare. The improvements in the way things are done are huge. LU really has the opportunity to be a world leader, not just in its own field but across other sectors.”
The P3M3 maturity model has assisted LU to save money, offer a better service and empower its staff. Doug Norman discusses its benefits, “This has been and continues to be a coordinated change programme to improve capability. It is easy to make ad-hoc changes and improvements. It is to LU’s credit that we have been able to maintain the necessary investment to drive through the full cycle of change from initial diagnosis to radical development and now continuous improvement.”
Through substantial investment, people development and user involvement, the Capital Programmes Directorate (CPD) of LU intends to reach Maturity Level 4 by November 2012.
About the maturity assessment
P3M3 is used by organizations looking to improve the quality and success of project outcomes and minimize risks. It provides a non-prescriptive framework and methodology encouraging and teaching organizations to deal with fundamental features of portfolio, programme and project management. As well as recognizing the individual importance of portfolio, programme and project related efforts, P3M3 addresses how these aspects are affected by the organization’s infrastructure and how best to consolidate all practices to the advantage of the business. The CPD of LU has an annual spend of £1.4 billion a year based on approximately 300 projects. For this reason, excellent project management is essential.
Alan Harpham, Chairman of APMG, said, “Organizations undertaking P3M3 assessments are moving beyond an assessment of their capability based upon budgetary effectiveness and holistically looking at their processes for maximum efficiency, effectiveness and stakeholder service.”