MAIDEO is a unique maturity model for projects, programmes and portfolios. It is based on Wim Scheper's research that identified five dimensions of an organization, namely 1) Strategy & Policy, 2) Organization and Process, 3) Monitoring & Control, 4) People and Culture, and 5) IT. These dimensions apply to process areas within an organization or the whole organization.

Process areas within organizations are also called functions, or Enterprise Functions after the Enterprise Function Diagram modelling technique, introduced by Koning, Bos and Brinkkemper (2006). Each function has a core process, similar in name. For example, consider Risk Management as function and responsibility and managing risks as a process. MAIDEO is based on the work of HybridP3M (Rosinski, 2021) which has identified fourteen core processes, corresponding to fourteen Enterprise Functions. These fourteen processes are:

• Defining the project or program
• Integrating knowledge management
• Planning
• Mitigating risks
• Business case development
• Realizing benefits
• Monitoring and control
• Managing stakeholder expectations
• Managing requirements
• Evaluating the project or program
• Leading the project or program
• Project/program establishment
• Providing assurance
• Agile product delivery

MAIDEO measures the maturity of each process. On the next page are two screenshots based on sample data.

Figure 1: Maturity Project Definition

In the above Illustration it reads that this organization scored positively on levels 1, 2, and 3. It is lacking levels 4 and 5 completely. Based on the high percentage, level 1 is clearly achieved, whilst there is some evidence of level 2 and 3, equally.

It should be noted that MAIDEO measures all maturity levels at the same time, because it is realistic to assume that organizations do not always develop in a linear fashion. This also depends on the quality of requirements as whether they truly represent the right maturity levels.

Figure 2: Maturity level of Integrating Knowledge Management

In the above Illustration it reads that this organization has clearly achieved level 1, with some support of level 2. But the higher levels are completely lacking. In practice this is often the case for Knowledge Management as knowledge management processes and techniques in project environments are not yet known to the wider public (despite literature like Projects with Learning Outcomes (Rosinski, 2021 B).

MAIDEO versus P3M3

It is useful to compare MAIDEO with P3M3, the maturity model owned by AXELOS. Just like P3M3 MAIDEO measures five maturity levels. In MAIDEO level 1 represents Initial Process, level 2 repeated process, level 3 defined process, level 4 managed process, and finally, level 5 optimized process. This is similar to P3M3 and other existing maturity models. A fundamental difference is that P3M3 uses the concept of process perspective for seven key process areas, namely 1), Management Control, 2) Benefits Management, 3) Financial Management, 4) Stakeholder Management or Stakeholder engagement, 5) Risk Management, 6) Organizational Governance, and 7) Resource Management. These perspectives do not fully cover the range of processes in project-based organizations, and they do not qualify as generic organizational dimensions. Dimensions should apply to most if not all Enterprise Functions. And with P3M3 this is clearly not the case. But the lack of coverage of unique functions and processes is the biggest limitation of P3M3. Another interesting difference is that P3M3 is based on the old convention to distinguish between the project, programme and portfolio level. This is a misconception. The difference between project and programme is artificial and based on a continuum, considering factors like size, complexity, and risk. And the portfolio level is simply the so-called organizational dimension considering all sub-functions of an organization, based on average figures. Finally, P3M3 has introduced in 2015 the concept of Threads for better diagnostics, but these cannot replace Enterprise Functions nor Dimensions. They merely make P3M3 more complicated with additional requirements. The number of requirements in P3M3 is notably very high (hundreds of questions), resulting in a timely and costly maturity assessment process.

Business Alignment

MAIDEO is a P3M maturity model. Although individual key process areas are key during the assessment process, the level of analysis is at the organizational level, across projects and programmes, and thus at the portfolio level. Additionally, MAIDEO provides a maturity measure of the whole organization using the five dimensions mentioned earlier. In this context, not only are maturity levels important but also business alignment. For example, some organizations may excel in IT but lack maturity in the dimension of People & Culture. Others may perform poorly in Strategy & Policy, usually a poor indicator for the rest of an organization, etc.

MAIDEO has two measures for Business Alignment. The first one is 'Estimated Maturity across all functions with implicit maturity levels, based on a total score' (see Illustration 3). The second one is Conditional Maturity in which thresholds - satisfaction of requirements for each level - determine explicit maturity levels (see Illustration 4). These two measures are based on different calculations, but both can be used to compare maturity levels and to understand business alignment.

Figure 3: Business Alignment indicator 1

In the above Illustration it reads that the two dimensions are relatively aligned. Due to lack of sample data the other dimensions lack a score.

Figure 4: Business Alignment Indicator 2

The above Illustration is based on the popular spider graph representation to map Business Alignment, or alternatively known as a Radar graph. Illustration 4 reads that the dimension People & Culture is at level 2, whereas the dimension Process and Organization is at level 3 (see the blue lines).

Availability

MAIDEO is available at SurveyEffort (https://www.surveyeffort.com). When you login to the site you can start a survey based on the MAIDEO standard. Just select Existing Maturity Assessment (password) targeted at Organizations and complete the process. The cost of an official assessment is 150 Euro (ex. VAT). MAIDEO maturity assessment is by far the cheapest and least complicated maturity assessment. It is also based on a sound meta-model, as evidenced by acknowledgement of Enterprise Functions and organizational dimensions. Furthermore, it recognizes the importance of business alignment. In total it has 16 graphical representations dealing with organizational maturity.                 

Literature

Koning, H., Bos, R., & Brinkkemper, S. (2006). A Lightweight Method for the Modeling of

Enterprise Architectures: Introduction and Empirical Validation. Department of Information and Computing Sciences Utrecht University Technical Report UU-CS-2006-003.

Rosinski, L. (2021). HybridP3M: Hybrid Project Management and Agile Mindset. Amazon.

Rosinski, L. (2021 B). Projects with Learning Outcomes. Amazon.

Scheper, W.J. (2002). Business IT Alignment: oplossing voor de productiviteitsparadox, Deloitte & Touche.