Page 188 - Organizational Project Management

Glossary

Dependencies. Dependencies are relationships in which a desired state is contin-
gent upon the achievement of one or more prerequisites.
One type of Dependency in OPM3 is represented by the series of Capabilities
that aggregate to a Best Practice. In general, each Capability builds upon pre-
ceding Capabilities (see Intra-Dependency).
Another type of Dependency occurs when the existence of one Best Practice
depends in part on the existence of some other Best Practice. In this case,
at least one of the Capabilities within the first Best Practice depends on the
existence of one of the Capabilities within the other Best Practice (see Inter-
Dependency).
Dependency relationship. See Dependencies.
Domain. A Domain refers to the three distinct disciplines of Portfolio Management,
Program Management, and Project Management (also referred to as PPP). For
more details, see Portfolio, Program, Project, and PPP in the glossary.
Improvement Planning Directory. The Improvement Planning Directory contains a
checklist of Capabilities, in priority order, that is necessary to establish the
achievement of a Best Practice. For each Capability, there is a column for the
user to check off the existence of each of the Outcomes associated with that
Capability.
For each Best Practice, the checklist includes the Capability ID Numbers and
Names defined within the Best Practice (Intra-Dependencies), as well as any
ID Numbers and Names of Capabilities that are prerequisites to achieving the
Best Practice but have been defined within and are primarily associated with
other Best Practices (Inter-Dependencies). The Inter-Dependencies are iden-
tified by having both a different Capability ID Number that starts with the Best
Practice Number within which it can be found, and a different font color).
These Capabilities/Outcomes are in the recommended sequence by which the
various Capabilities aggregate to the Best Practice. The Improvement Planning
Directory thus serves as a suggested path by which an organization can
approach improvements in maturity by achieving Outcomes associated with
Capabilities, in priority order, to attain Best Practices. The Improvement Plan-
ning Directory appears in an appendix to this document.
Input. A document or documentable item that will be acted upon by a process.
Interdependencies. Interdependencies reflect the general relationship between
Capabilities and Best Practices. They suggest the sequence in which the orga-
nization should develop the underlying Capabilities that support associated Best
Practices.
Interrelationships. Interrelationships are logical relationships that define the normal
flow of information between Project Management Processes.
KPI. A Key Performance Indicator (KPI) is a criterion by which an organization can
determine, quantitatively or qualitatively, whether the Outcome associated with
a Capability exists or the degree to which it exists. A Key Performance Indicator
can be a direct measurement or an expert assessment.
When a Key Performance Indicator is quantitative, involving direct measure-
ment, a form of metric is required. A metric is a measurement of something.
Something tangible, such as an error count, can be measured directly and
objectively. Something intangible, such as customer satisfaction, must first be
made tangible—for example, through a survey resulting in ratings on a scale—
before it can be measured. A metric can be binary (something exists or does
not exist), it can be more complex (such as a scaled rating), or it can be mon-
etary (such as financial return).
Maturity State. An organization’s degree of maturity in organizational project man-
agement.

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