The purpose of the Project to Capability Mapping (PV-3) model is to primarily support the acquisition and fielding processes, including the management of dependencies between projects and the integration of all relevant project and programme elements to achieve a capability.

In PV-3, programmes and projects are mapped to capabilities to show how the specific projects and programme elements help to achieve a capability. Projects are mapped to the capability for a particular time period. Projects may contribute to multiple capabilities and may mature across time periods.

The PV-3 model can be used to identify capability redundancies and shortfalls, highlight programme phasing issues, expose organizational or system interoperability problems, and support programme decisions, such as when to phase out a legacy system.