I get asked this almost every week: “should we do a maturity assessment, or should we go straight for P3M3?” It’s a fair question, and honestly, most people asking it have been sold both terms by different people at different times, so by the time it lands on my desk, the two have often merged into one confused idea.
So let’s untangle it properly.
A PMO maturity assessment is Wellingtone’s own proprietary model, benchmarked against a dataset of over 2,000 organisations, typically completed in as little as 4 days, and scored across 15 elements of project, programme and PMO capability. A P3M3 audit is the formal, Axelos (Peoplcert)-owned framework, delivered by an accredited Consulting Partner like us, typically taking several weeks, scored across 7 perspectives, and resulting in an industry-recognised certificate. Both use the same underlying approach, review, interview, analyse, report, they just differ in depth, cost, and what you walk away with.
Why This Question Matters More Than People Think
“If you speak to me about a maturity assessment, my first question to you is going to be, why this, why now?”
Emma Arnaz-Pemberton, Director of Consulting Services, Wellingtone
It’s because the two options genuinely serve different purposes, and picking the wrong one wastes everyone’s time and budget. A certificate on the wall doesn’t help you if what you actually needed was a fast, practical roadmap. And a quick internal benchmark doesn’t help you if what you actually needed was something independently certified that you can put in front of a client or a funding board.
What’s Actually Different
Here’s the honest comparison, side by side.
| PMO Maturity Assessment | P3M3 Audit | |
|---|---|---|
| Owned by | Wellingtone | Axelos / PeopleCert |
| Typical duration | As little as 4 days | 12 days upwards |
| Scored across | 15 elements of capability | 7 perspectives |
| Benchmarked against | 2,000+ organisations (Wellingtone dataset) | Axelos global dataset |
| Outcome | Detailed score and practical roadmap | Detailed score, roadmap, and an industry-recognised certificate |
| Best suited to | Internal benchmarking and building a case for change | Formally demonstrating maturity to clients, stakeholders, funding routes, or shareholders |
Both follow the same engagement approach. We review your existing delivery framework, governance and a sample of live projects. We interview your key stakeholders, each session takes around an hour. We analyse the results and benchmark your data. Then we report back with practical recommendations, not just a score sitting in a document nobody reads again.
When the Wellingtone Maturity Assessment Is the Right Call
If you need a fast, honest, data-driven snapshot of where you actually are, this is almost always where I’d start. It’s quicker, it’s more affordable, and because we benchmark you against a dataset of over 2,000 organisations, you get real comparative insight, not just an internal opinion dressed up as fact.
It’s also, in my experience, the better starting point if you’re still trying to convince people internally that change is needed. I’ve said this to clients so many times it’s basically become a mantra:
You can’t know where you’re going until you know where you’ve been.
Emma Arnaz-Pemberton, Director of Consulting Services, Wellingtone
An independent view, even a relatively quick one, gives you something a lot more powerful than your own perception of how things are going. And perception is exactly that, it’s personal. Your view of how well your PPM practice is working could be completely different to the person sitting next to you. A maturity assessment replaces two competing perceptions with one shared, evidenced starting point.
When the P3M3 Audit Is the Right Call
If what you actually need is external, industry-recognised proof, because you’re bidding for public sector work, reassuring a board, or demonstrating capability to a client, then P3M3 is usually the better investment. It takes longer and costs more, but you come away with something that carries weight outside your own organisation: a certified score, backed by Axelos’s global benchmark data, not just ours.
I wouldn’t recommend it as a first step for everyone. If you haven’t done any kind of maturity work before, jumping straight to a 9-day formal audit without knowing roughly what it’s going to tell you can feel like a big, expensive leap into the unknown. For some organisations that’s exactly the right leap. For others, it’s overkill for what they actually need right now.
Can You Do Both?
Yes, and a lot of our clients do, just not usually at the same time. A common pattern I see is a maturity assessment first, to build the internal case for change and get quick wins moving, followed by a P3M3 audit later once there’s a clearer strategic reason to want that external certification, a tender requirement, a new sponsor who wants independent proof, a board that wants reassurance before further investment.
Because both follow the same review, interview, analyse, report approach, moving from one to the other later isn’t wasted effort. You’re building on the same foundation, just going deeper when there’s a genuine reason to.
Building the Case, Whichever Route You Choose
Whichever one you land on, don’t skip the groundwork. This is the bit most people rush, and it’s the bit that actually determines whether the assessment leads to real change or just a document nobody looks at again.
Understand your key players first. They don’t all want the same thing, a finance director and a delivery lead are not going to be persuaded by the same argument, but they do all need to come away from the process feeling like it was worth their time.
They don’t all want the same thing, but they do all need to feel the same way following the assessment. They need to feel like valued participants who are going to get something positive and tangible out of it.
Emma Arnaz-Pemberton, Director of Consulting Services, Wellingtone
Identify the actual pain points you’re trying to fix, not just “we should probably do a maturity thing,” and think about the benefit of fixing each one from a strategic angle, a delivery angle, and a capability angle. That way, whoever ends up reading the business case, whatever they care about, it lands.
And think about what happens after the report lands on your desk. A maturity assessment or a P3M3 audit is genuinely only as valuable as what you do with it. People give up their time, their documents, and often their honest opinions to take part. If nothing visibly changes afterwards, you won’t get that same openness next time.
