Page 55 - Organizational Project Management

Chapter 6—The OPM3 Cycle

determine which specific Capabilities do or do not exist and, therefore, how
close the organization is to attaining each Best Practice.
Further detailed sub-steps within the Comprehensive Assessment step are
provided in Appendix E.
This step should be completed before contemplating improvements. The
organization needs to understand 1) all the Capabilities it already has, 2)
all the Capabilities it does not have, and 3) the relative importance of each
Capability to the organization. Once the organization has identified and
prioritized these, it can weigh the pros and cons of pursuing the various
paths to improvements, based on the results of the two Assessment phases.
At this point, based on the current results of the Assessment process, an
organization may decide not to pursue a plan for improvements. This could
be the case if a) the organization feels satisfied with its current state of
maturity in organizational project management, or b) the organization
decides it does not currently have the resources to pursue needed improve-
ments. If such a decision is made, the organization should commit to
returning periodically to the Assessment steps to see whether subsequent
events have impacted overall maturity in organizational project manage-
ment and whether improvements should be reconsidered. Even if an orga-
nization plans to make improvements, however, there may still be a benefit
from repeating the Self-Assessment. Following the first round of Assess-
ments, a greater familiarity with the Best Practices and their constituent
Capabilities, and a more realistic view of the organization, may result in
different answers to the Self-Assessment survey and a more accurate out-
come the second time. Finally, organizations repeating the Assessment step
after working on improvements (see Section 6.3.5 Step Five: Repeat the
Process, below) may choose to exit the OPM3 Cycle, depending on the
results, or plan for additional improvements.

6.3.3 Step Three: Plan for Improvements
Most organizations will likely be unable to achieve all of their desired Capa-
bilities at once. Some Capabilities may build on others, and many that could
otherwise occur at the same time will not, since the organization cannot
commit to achieving them all at the same time.
The results of the two Assessment phases will provide a potential basis
for an organization’s improvement plan. The documentation of the Out-
comes which have not been observed—indicating Capabilities the organi-
zation does not fully demonstrate—permits a ranking of Outcomes and
Capabilities within each Best Practice according to their priority for the
organization.
For each Best Practice, this ranking may be identical to the sequence or
path shown in the Improvement Planning Directory, derived from the depen-
dencies among Capabilities and Best Practices. The logic implied in this
path can help an organization make wise choices in allocating its limited
resources for improvement initiatives. Other factors potentially useful in
prioritizing planned improvements for optimum use of resources may
include the following:

©2003 Project Management Institute, Four Campus Boulevard, Newtown Square, PA 19073-3299 USA 39