For BEYOND HORIZON Column

The Emerging OPM3 Suhail Iqbal, PE, PgMP, PMP, PMI-ACP, PMI-RMP, PMI-SP, CAPM, PME, MCT, PRINCE2 PractitionerOrganizational Project Management Maturity Model (OPM3) standard is being revised and will soon be released as 3rd Edition. Since its first edition, OPM3 has really evolved into a more mature and stable standard. Like A Guide to Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBoK), every new edition has always brought welcome changes and always made more sense. PMBoK 5th Edition will be released in January 2013 and it is very likely that 2nd Editions of Standard for Program Management and Standard for Portfolio Management will also be released alongside it. We can always expect OPM3 3rd Edition coming out with these three standards as these four standards of PMI have been grouped together as Core Standards and were released last time together.

OPM3 is one standard which is affected by all three standards mentioned earlier. Without a framework for projects, programs and portfolios in place, we cannot start talking about the maturity of organizational project management. OPM3 Best Practices and Capabilities incorporate the processes contained in: A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide) Fifth Edition The Standard for Program Management Third Edition The Standard for Portfolio Management Third Edition

In addition to above mentioned core standards, OPM3 also leverages the other two core standards, including Project Manager Competency Development Framework (PMCDF),

PMIs Project Management Lexicon.

The concept of Organizational Project management is better defined in 3rd Edition and the relationship with operations and product development is also hinted upon. Although I feel, more emphasis could have been laid in clarifying these two relationships, but OPM3 quickly steers clear of these linkages and focuses on the core subject of maturity in projects, programs and portfolios with strategic intent. The standard relates them by saying,OPM advances organizational capability by supporting project, program, and portfolio management principles and practices with organizational enablers (e.g. structural, cultural, technological, and human resource practices) to support strategic goals. An organization measures its capabilities, then plans and implements improvements towards the systematic achievement of best practices.An attempt to link OPM with Organizational strategy exists where the standard mentions:

Organizational strategy is a result of the strategic planning cycle, where the vision and mission are translated into a strategic plan. The strategic plan is then subdivided into a set of initiatives that are influenced by market dynamics, customer and partner requests, shareholders, government regulations, and competitor plans and actions. These initiatives establish strategic and operational portfolios for execution in the planned period.As you can see, the standard halts in its tracks after saying this much about strategic and operational portfolios and never explains this linkage any further, leaving much to the desire. It is also important to mention here that this is the first time PMI has ever made a mention of operational portfolios and we do not really understand the mechanism by which these operational portfolios link with project portfolios. Strategy is a much wider subject and cannot be covered by addressing project portfolio management alone, until and unless we are clear about what happens at organizational strategic level.

My observations as a Subject Matter Expert for the new edition of OPM3 are as under:-

1. In the whole standard a very slight mention of operational processes like product development, operational effectiveness, and better customer services was made. Where OPM3 claims to be addressing the Vision, Mission, Strategy and Objectives of the Organization, it fails to justify its useful to Organization's Operation in so many words. The missing link is between OPM and the Operations of the organization. 2. The Best Practices table, which is several pages long) unnecessarily distracts the reading of OPM3 standard by being situated right in the middle of the standard. It could be much better if it could be moved to the end as an Annexure.3. Like processes in PMBoK and other standards, PMI has introduced processes with ITTOs for OPM3 also. Unfortunately they are not consistent at all and no process flow diagram has been prepared to show the linkages depicted amongst the processes. Many outputs produced as output of a process are never seen to be used elsewhere, indicating the output must have been redundant as it was not needed by any other process.4. Several inputs in these processes could have been accommodated in Organizational Process Assets or Enterprise Environmental Factors but are taking up useless space by being mentioned separately, thus increasing the number of I/Os to as much as fifteen in certain cases.

5. This new experiment of introducing processes for OPM3 may be a good idea but enough time should have been given to establish proper process flow. In present status, these processes are self-contradictory in certain cases. At many places, OPM3 standard does not remain consistent with other standards as far as convention for use of ITTOs is concerned in the newly formed processes.

In light of the observations, it was recommended to PMI that they SHOULD NOT publish OPM3 standard in current form. They should either extend the date of the project and work more on OPM3 processes or simply exclude them from standard for the time being.Soon, when this standard will be in your hands, you would be able to see the validity of my concerns and observations made to PMI. I hope they would accept some or all of my suggestions.

Authors Profile

Suhail Iqbal, PE, PgMP, PMP, PMI-ACP, PMI-RMP, PMI-SP, CAPM, PME, MCT, PRINCE2 PractitionerProject Management Trainer, Consultant and Researcher with an experience of over 30 years, last 10 years specifically dedicated to the discipline of project management. Had been involved in development of OPM3 2nd Ed as Quality Lead and SME Lead, OPM3 3rd Ed as SME, PMBOK Guide 4th Ed as Configuration Manager and 5th Ed as Author of Chapter 1, Program Management Standard 1st & 2nd Ed and Portfolio Management Standard 1st & 2nd Ed. Served as PMI Islamabad Pakistan Chapter President, Component Mentor Asia, PMI Member Leadership Institute Advisory Group, Chairman APFPM, and Vice President Education Islamabad ToastMasters Club. Currently Regional Director PRMIA Pakistan Chapter, Vice Chair Mensa Pakistan and Director-at-Large with PMI Pakistan Islamabad Chapter. Associated with PMI EdSIG, Consulting CoP, Quality CoP and many other CoPs. Research Scholar at SKEMA Business School. Lille, France with over 12 publications to his credit. Specialize in Organizational Maturity, OPM3 and Creative Leadership.