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I am starting a project of going through the 6th Edition of the PMBOK® Guide and blogging about its contents.    The 6th Edition was released on September 22nd by the Project Management Institute, and the second chapter is a general introduction to the framework in which project management exists, starting with section 2.1 Project Influences.

Looking back on the first chapter, it contained the foundational elements of project management, showing in many cases the internal structure of a project.   The second chapter concentrates more on the exterior of a project, to the environments in which projects operate.  These environments can influence a project either favorably or negatively, and that is why a project manager needs to be aware of them.

Figure 2.1 on page 37 show the two categories of project influencers:

• Enterprise environmental factors–these are conditions which are not under control of the project team, that influence, constrain, or direct the project.  They can be either internal to the organization (such as organization culture) or external to the organization (such as legal restrictions).
• Organizational process assets–these are the business practices or knowledge bases  specific to an organization which can influence the management of the project.  Examples include processes, policies and procedures.

From a practical standpoint for someone who is studying for the Project Management Professional (PMP®) exam, you should know that environmental environmental factors are often abbreviated as EEFs and organization process assets are often abbreviated as OPAs.   Because they influence how a project is done, they are “generic” inputs to many of the project management processes you will need to learn.

The next two posts go into some detail about the various kinds of EEFs and OPAs.

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