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

Though the nature of a project is temporary, they are not performed in isolation. They work in a controlled environment and are affected by Enterprise Environmental Factors (EEF) and Organizational Process Assets (OPA).

The Project Management Institute terms them as influences. Enterprise environmental factors can be internal or external, while organizational process assets are always internal to an organization.

Enterprise environmental factors and organizational process assets are widely discussed in thebob手机客户端and are inputs of almost all processes. You must have a thorough understanding of EEF vs OPA.

Although the concepts are straightforward, many PMP aspirants fail to understand them and often make mistakes on the exam.

Please note that you may or may not see a direct question on these topics in the exam, but having a better understanding of EEF and OPA will undoubtedly help you on your test.

Enterprise Environmental Factors (EEF)

First, we should understand the word “environment” before we start to discuss enterprise environmental factors.

You can define the environment as anything related to the natural world and the impact of human activity or its condition, or the culture that an individual lives in, and the people and institutions with whom they interact (Wikipedia).

Since we live in an environment, it influences our behavior in a certain way.

For instance, in cold weather, we need to wear woolen clothes to keep ourselves warm. The cold weather is the “environment” that forces us to cover ourselves with woolen clothes.

This is the impact of a cold environment on us.

Now we come to enterprise environmental factors.

企业环境因素是影响组织或影响组织的项目管理团队的影响project, and its outcome. Every organization has to exist and work within the EEF.

These influences may have positive or negative impacts on your project constraints, though often, the impact is negative.

Enterprise environment factors can be either internal or external.

外部企业环境因素的示例如下：

• Government regulations
• 市场状况
• External political conditions
• 行业标准
• Legal restrictions

A few examples of internal enterprise environmental factors include:

• 组织文化
• Type of organizational structure
• 内部政治条件
• Available resources
• Infrastructure

Organizational Process Assets (OPA)

Before moving on to the organizational process assets, let us define 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.

资产是您可以在任何时间点拥有，保留和利用的东西。

Examples of assets are numerous; you can have a car, which helps you move around, a house to live in, a computer to work on… the list is endless.

以同样的方式organizations还拥有可以帮助他们实现目标的资产。在这里，这些资产称为组织流程资产。这些飞散是PMBOK指南几乎所有过程的输入。bob手机客户端项目管理团队可以根据他们的要求修改这些飞散。

Once the project has ended, these organizational process assets can be stored in a central repository so that they can be used whenever required for any future projects.

Organizational process assets can be divided into two categories.

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

• 政策
• 程序
• Standard templates
• General guidelines

The project management team cannot update or modify these elements usually, as they have been provided by the organization. However, a project manager can provide feedback or suggestions, and higher management can make a decision to update or modify.

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

These organizational process assets influence the project’s success, and they keep growing as the organization becomes larger.

Let us say that you are in the identify risks process. You decide to start identifying risks by using a checklist.

You are not going to create this checklist from scratch; you will look at any similar past project records to find a risk checklist and customize it as per your project requirements. This will save you a lot of time.

项目管理中有一个非常著名的说法：“为什么要重新发明轮子？”这意味着如果您有一些可用的东西，为什么要尝试重新制作？您可以自由更新或修改此类别的元素。

Organizational process assets are used extensively in project management. It is the responsibility of the project management team to look for any relevant documents in historical records before starting to build something from scratch.

The Difference Between Organizational Process Assets and Enterprise Environmental Factors (EEF Vs OPA)

组织过程资产和企业环境因素之间存在许多差异。

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.

另一方面，企业环境因素可能会或可能不会帮助您的组织。这些是您的组织必须工作的条件，并且不属于项目管理团队的控制。

For example, if the government increases taxes, it will affect your profits negatively; however, if they decrease taxes, your profits will increase.

此外，企业环境因素不容易改变。你必须和他们一起生活。组织流程资产可以根据其适用性进行定制，并使项目管理团队的生活更加舒适。

It is important to note that organizational process assets always support the project team, while enterprise environmental factors can help or hinder it.

Summary

Enterprise environmental factors (EEF) and organizational process assets (OPA) are the most widely referred to influences in the PMBOK Guide. 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.

You have to understand these influences as they are inputs of most processes and you have to manage your project within them.

您的项目是如何影响企业environmental factors and organizational process assets (EEF and OPA)? Please share your thoughts in the comments section.