Page 187 - Organizational Project Management

Glossary

Best Practice. A Best Practice is an optimal way currently recognized by industry to
achieve a stated goal or objective. For organizational project management, this
includes the ability to deliver projects successfully, consistently, and predictably
to implement organization strategies.
Best Practices Directory. The Best Practices Directory lists the nearly 600 Best
Practices that form the foundation of the OPM3 content. This Directory pro-
vides the name and a brief description of each Best Practice. By reviewing the
Best Practices Directory, the user can become generally familiar with the OPM3
content. An organization will also use this Directory following the Self-Assess-
ment Module to identify Best Practices for any potential improvement effort.
The Best Practices Directory appears in an appendix to this document. It iden-
tifies each Best Practice, to which of the three Domains the Best Practice
applies (Project, Program or Portfolio), as well as to which of the four stages of
process improvement the Best Practice applies (Standardize, Measure, Con-
trol, Improve).
Capabilities Directory. The Capabilities Directory provides detailed data on each
of the Capabilities, organized according to the Best Practices with which they
are associated. The Capabilities Directory is central to the second Assessment
step, in which the user is able to determine which Capabilities currently exist
in the organization and which do not.
The Capabilities Directory appears in an appendix to this document. For each
Best Practice, it includes a list of its constituent Capabilities, including their
associated Outcomes, Key Performance Indicators and Metrics that should be
confirmed to claim the existence of this Capability.
Each Capability contains an ID number, the Domain(s) (Project, Program, or
Portfolio), Process Improvement Stage(s) (Standardize, Measure, Control, or
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Improve) and the PMBOK Guide Process Group(s) (Initiate, Plan, Execute,
Control, or Closeout) to which the Capability applies.
Capability. A Capability is a specific competency that must exist in an organization
in order for it to execute project management processes and deliver project
management services and products. Capabilities are incremental steps leading
up to one or more Best Practices.
Categorization/mapping. Categorizations are groupings to provide structure and a
framework for the OPM3 model so that the relationship between Best Prac-
tices and Capabilities could be better understood. It also allows organizations
to focus on alternative approaches to maturity.
The three categorizations in the model are PPP (Portfolio, Program, or Project),
SMCI (Standardize, Measure, Control, or Continuously Improve), and IPECC
(Initiate, Plan, Execute, Control, and Close). These categorizations can be used
to approach OPM3 from a project management domain, an improvement
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process, or a PMBOK process area, respectively. As such, each Best Practice
and Capability is mapped to one category in each of the above three catego-
rizations. See Domain, PPP, and SMCI in the Glossary for more details.

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