Page 31 - Organizational Project Management

Chapter 3—Best Practices

■ Develop the project management competencies of personnel
■ Allocate resources to projects
■ Improve teamwork.
Best Practices can serve a multitude of purposes for an organization.
In the context of OPM3, here are some of the most beneficial uses for Best
Practices:

Best Practices . . .
Provide a foundation for a plan to achieve strategic goals
■ Provide the means to measure an organization’s project performance
against a broad-based set of specific project management Best Practices
and create targeted performance goals
■ Provide a basis for disparate groups across an organization to establish
common and consistent language, tools, and processes
■ Serve as a basis for training and developing personnel
■ Function as an organizational competency assessment vehicle
■ Enable organizations to apply lessons learned throughout the project life
cycle.

3.3 CAPABILITIES, OUTCOMES, AND
KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS

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. Each Best Practice is made up of
two or more Capabilities.
The existence of a Capability is demonstrated by the existence of one or
more corresponding Outcomes. Outcomes are the tangible or intangible
result of applying a Capability. In the OPM3 framework, a Capability may
have multiple Outcomes.
An example of a Capability and its Outcome, in the case of the Best Prac-
tice cited earlier, would be as follows:
Best Practice: “Establish Internal Project Management Communities”
Capability (one of four for this Best Practice): “Facilitate Project Manage-
ment Activities”
Outcome: “Local Initiatives—The organization develops pockets of con-
sensus around areas of special interest”
A Key Performance Indicator (KPI) is a criterion by which an organiza-
tion 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 assess-
ment.
Example: the KPI for the Best Practice, Capability, and Outcome just shown
is “Community addresses local issues.” In other words, the existence of the Out-
come “Local Initiatives” would be determined by whether or not communi-
ties within the organization are actually focused on addressing issues of local
interest with regard to project management.

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