Enterprise Environmental Factors (EEF) & Organizational Process Assets (OPA)

A project is a temporary endeavor that creates unique results such as services, and products. projects work in a controlled environment and are affected by Enterprise Environmental Factors (EEF) & Organizational Process Assets(OPA).

Enterprise Environmental Factors (EEF)

These originate from outside of the project and often outside of the enterprise. They may have an impact at the organizational, portfolio, program, and project levels. It acts as input to the project management process mostly in the planning process.

Enterprise environment factors can be either internal or external.

Examples of internal enterprise environmental factors are as follows:

• Organizational Culture, Structure,& governance
  Vision ,Mission.value.belief,leadearship style,ethics,code of conduct
• Geographic distribution of facilities & resources
  factory location, virtual teams, shared system cloud computing
• Infrastructure
  existing facilities,equipment,organizational telecommunication channel,Information technology hardware,avaliablity,capacity
• Informational Technology software
  Scheduling soft tools, configuration mgmt systems, web interface, work authorization system
• Resource Availability
  contracting constraints,approved providers subcontractors,collaboration agreements
• Employee capability
  existing human resources, skills, competencies, specialized knowledge

Examples of external enterprise environmental factors are as follows:

• Marketplace conditions
• Social & cultural influences & issues
• Legal restrictions
• commercial databases
• Academic research Govt. or industry standards
• Financial considerations
• Physical environmental elements (working conditions,weather constraints)

Organizational Process Assets

An asset is defined as a useful or valuable entity or property owned by a person or company, which has value and is available to meet debts, commitments, or legacies.

Organizational Process Assets (OPA) are internal to the organization. They arise from the organization itself, a portfolio, program, project, or combination of these.

Organizational process assets can be divided into two categories.

The first is for processes, policies, and procedures for conducting work, which includes the following:

• Policies
• Procedures
• Standard templates
• General guidelines

The second category comprises the corporate knowledge base for storing and retrieving information. For example:

• Risk register
• Lessons learned
• Stakeholder register
• Past project files
• Historical information

Difference between OPA & EEF

Organizational process assets help organizations to improve their processes, help project management teams to learn, and share best practices by using a collective knowledge base.

On the other hand, enterprise environmental factors may or may not help your organization. These are the conditions in which your organization has to work and do not fall under the control of the project management team.

Moreover, enterprise environmental factors are not easy to change; you have to live with them. Organizational process assets can be customized according to their suitability, and they make the project management team’s life much more comfortable.

Key Takeaway:-

EEFs provide you with a controlled environment in which your organization lives and you complete your project. OPAs help you by providing all corporate knowledge, policies, procedures, etc.