Enterprise Environmental Factors v/s Organizational Process Assets

Submitted by mucool on Thu, 05/31/2012 - 02:43

I am not able to get the exact difference between the Enterprise Environmental Factors and Organizational Process Assets. I read the list from PMBOK and feel both are almost same. Can somebody help me out in this? Also, what can we expect in the exam on these topics?

- mucool

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PMNovice

Thu, 05/31/2012 - 03:49

Hello,

 

 This is a very good question. And I am sure you must have read the definitions of both from PMBOK already.

One way to look at the difference between the two  is that it is very difficult to change Enterprise Environmental Factors(EEF) during the course of your project, so you (the PM) has to live with thes. You have to understand/accept/use these whether you like it or not. For exmple: Politics, Organizational culture, Govt. or Industry standrads, Market place conditions, Company Work Authorization System and so on. So most of these you can not change and you will have to use them/live by that. If you look at the Output of the processes you will find that EEF gets updated only twice : During Develop Project team & Manage project team. Also in the above list Work Authorization System seems to be confusing and we may think we might change it but usually you just follow/use this.

On the other hand Organization process assets(OPA) are often updated. for future projects and also in the current projects. These are assets to the organization which can be used on the projects. These are often in the form of "documents" like plan, lessons learned, policies, procedures, templates, Historical information etc. If you look at the Outputs of the process you will find that OPA gets updated quite frequently. So if you a project and learn some lessons then you update the OPA so that it can be used in the future projects.

 

In the exam remember that Work Authorization System is an EEF not OPA. Besides both EEF and OPA goes together as far as input is concerned.

Hope this helps.

diba_perfect

Thu, 05/31/2012 - 10:18

so would it be correct to say that EEFs are more like 'constraints' and OPAs are assets which can be reused?

sspawar

Thu, 05/31/2012 - 15:52

OPA is your company's processing assets that can be performed , processed, operated, or acted upon, in available or in determined environment.

This environment is Environmental, enterprise factors.

Mr. pmnovise has explained nicely.

EEF may be sometimes an opportunity or may be sometimes a threat or constrints.

Regards

Hraouda

Fri, 11/29/2013 - 22:18

 thank you for the input. The idea is clear. However, the PMP book uses confusing terms to describe both.

 

For example: According to the pmp book, Financial databases are Organizational Process Assets while Project management Information system is considered an Enterprise Environmental factor. Also the book mentions that  Rules, standards and guidlines specific to the application area is condidered Enterprise Environmental factors while organizational policies, procedures and guidlines are considered Organizational process assets. Pmbok 5th edition page 234 is an example for that contradiction. 

 

Thx

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

dpar

Sat, 11/30/2013 - 01:02

I don't think anyone has a 100% answer but the above are as close as you could get.

PMIS is software and/or applications. I think PMIS is an EEF because the PMIS itself is not so much an asset but something that you have to use Think of it like Microsoft Word. You do not own MS Word, Microsoft does, therefore you cannot change anything about it outside of the user selectable controls. You only have permission to use it and you are probably forced to use MS Word instead of another program because that is what is installed on your work computer. MS word has its limitations and constraints and therefore an Environmental factor more than a tangible asset owned by the company. You have to work inside MS Word.

If you owned MS Word then you could change it. Maybe you don't like how the features are laid out or the automatic formatting. If you owned MS Word you could change those functions to default to whatever you wished even if the defaults were not a user selectable feature.