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

Though the nature of aproject是暂时的，不是孤立地进行的。它们在受控环境中工作，并受到企业环境因素（EEF）和组织过程资产（OPA）的影响。

项目管理研究所将其称为影响。企业环境因素可以是内部或外部的，而组织过程资产始终是组织的内部。

Enterprise environmental factors and organizational process assets are widely discussed in thebob手机客户端并且是几乎所有过程的输入。您必须对EEF与OPA有透彻的了解。

尽管这些概念很简单，但许多PMP有抱负者无法理解它们，并且经常在考试中犯错。

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.

Enterprise environmental factors are the influences not under the control of the organization or the project management team that affect the organization, theproject，及其结果。每个组织都必须存在并在EEF中工作。

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

企业环境因素可以是内部的或外部的。

Examples of external enterprise environmental factors are as follows:

• Government regulations
• Market conditions
• 外部政治条件
• Industry standards
• Legal restrictions

A few examples of internal enterprise environmental factors include:

• Organizational culture
• 组织结构类型
• Internal political conditions
• Available resources
• 基础设施

Organizational Process Assets (OPA)

Before moving onto 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.

Assets are something that you can own, keep, and make use of at any point in time.

资产的例子很多；您可以有一辆汽车，可以帮助您四处走动，一座房子居住，一台用于工作的计算机……清单是无穷无尽的。

In the same way,organizationsalso have assets that help them achieve their goals. Here these assets are called organizational process assets. These OPAs are inputs of almost all processes of the PMBOK Guide. The project management team may modify these OPAs according to their requirements.

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.

组织过程资产可以分为两类。

首先是用于进行工作的流程，政策和程序，其中包括以下内容：

• Policies
• Procedures
• 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.

第二类包括用于存储和检索信息的公司知识库。例如：

• 风险注册
• Lessons learned
• Stakeholder register
• 过去的项目文件
• 历史信息

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.

There is a very famous saying in project management, “Why reinvent the wheel?” which means if you have something available to you, why would you try to remake it? You are free to update or modify elements from this category.

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)

There are many differences between organizational process assets and enterprise environmental factors.

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.

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

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.

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

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, and procedures, etc.

您必须了解这些影响，因为它们是大多数流程的输入，并且必须在其中管理项目。

How is your project influenced by enterprise environmental factors and organizational process assets (EEF and OPA)? Please share your thoughts in the comments section.