The feasibility of prince2 project management methodology and maturity level in a pharmaceutical company

Abstract

Project management maturity model is regarded as a useful tool to evaluate organizations' current project management capability. The Project Management Maturity Model offers a framework for evaluating the ability of an organization by assessing the maturity of project management processes. Project Management Maturity Model (PMMM) is getting popular because of its versatility and its ability to control time and cost most efficiently. Research shows that organizations with a higher level of project management (PM) maturity are likely to be efficient in terms of project effectiveness and productivity and thus have a competitive advantage in the marketplace. However, despite many project management maturity models (PM3s) built over a span of more than 20 years, knowledge of how PM3s are implemented in organizations is scarce in the PM literature. There were concerns raised from the Project Management Office (PMOs), on project management and the understanding and application of the Project Management methodology. Besides that, the project management maturity level were needed to be identified and also for Project Managers who needs to justify the funding of their projects and to ensure the costings stays flat. Therefore, this study is to assess the current maturity level of the project management practices in the pharmaceutical company and to explore the extent to how a pharmaceutical company follows and apply a systematic approach to their project management based on the PRINCE2 methodology. Besides, key processes that needs to be embedded are identified along with recommendations to achieve the next maturity level in the pharmaceutical company. Data was gathered from 56 respondents working and managing projects using a set of questionnaire and a descriptive analysis was carried out to achieve the first and second research objectives. Four semi-structured interviews were conducted with the main stakeholders of a project who possessed up to 20 years of working experience in project management in the pharmaceutical company. The purpose of the interview was to achieve the third research objective, which is to gather recommendations on how to achieve the next level of maturity and improvement of the key processes that need to be adapted. The study has revealed that most of the respondents agree that the project managers have adopted the seven process perspectives of P2MM when managing pharmaceutical projects. Project managers in the pharmaceutical company apply the seven process perspectives of P2MM when managing projects by the mean score ranging from 3.63 to 4.02. The overall maturity level of the pharmaceutical company was analysed to be at Level 3. Recommendations were proposed in the study for the improvement of maturity level – from Level 3 to Level 4&5 and adaptation of the processes that need to be strengthened.