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Appendix B—Evolution of the OPM3 Standard

These were then decomposed into individual ideas. This process ultimately
resulted in the identification of approximately 170 Best Practices.

B.4 CAPABILITIES, OUTCOMES, KPIs
In order to engage the broader team in the identification of Capabilities
that aggregate to their associated Best Practices, the team distributed the
content (Best Practices) and divided the labor of identifying the Capabili-
ties. To provide a rationale for the distribution of the Best Practices,
Christophe Bredillet, Terry Cooke-Davies, and Ralph Levene devised a
method for analyzing the actual words used in the descriptions of each Best
Practice, and clustering Best Practices based on their affinity with certain
key issues. A team of volunteers was then assigned to each cluster, resulting
in ten teams called Design Cells. The work of the "Design Cells" was then
analyzed by the Synthesis Team, under the leadership of Tina Slankas and
Helen Cooke.
Because the Guidance Team and PMI had agreed on the development of
a causal model, a model that described causes and effects, they also agreed
that the Capabilities being identified (leading to the Best Practices) should
produce Outcomes. The Design Cells were empowered to articulate the Out-
comes corresponding to the Capabilities they had identified.
In the next face-to-face meeting of the Guidance Team, Bill Wright pro-
posed that the team should develop Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to
describe what a user should look for to determine whether an Outcome cor-
responding to a Capability had been produced. The Guidance Team dis-
cussed this proposal and approved it. This ultimately resulted in
identification of thousands of Key Performance Indicators.
In May 2001, the OPM3 Project Team proposed that OPM3 could be
positioned as a unique resource for enabling rigorous diagnosis, planning,
and prioritization of improvement efforts. In June 2001, PMI agreed.

B.5 CUSTOMER REQUIREMENTS
Also in 2001, the Research team, led by Saurel Quettan and Fred Abrams,
began identifying organizations that constituted potential users of OPM3
and profiling them. Surveys were deployed in June, August, and September
2001 to elicit requirements from the marketplace for development of the
Model.
The results indicated that the Model must be realistic, practical, easy
to use, consistent, scalable, flexible, accurate, focused on improvement, and
clearly demonstrate the relationship between causes and effects.
In addition, eighty percent of respondents said they wanted a direct rela-
®
tionship between OPM3 and the PMBOK Guide. Eighty-six percent of those
surveyed wanted a self-assessment component and third-party assessment.
These and the other findings from the surveys dictated which requirements
the Model would satisfy.
In July 2001, the Research team began to design alpha and beta testing
approaches to validate the Model. Concurrently, PMI began to advertise the

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