PMI launched four updates to its range of standards on the 31st December 2008. The four standards are aligned and consistent which will help ensure all levels of the profession are using the same terms, have the same understanding and can promote harmonisation across all levels of an organisation. Earlier blogs have discussed the changes in the PMBOK® Guide and their impact on the credential examinations for PMP, CAPM, PgMP and PMI-SP. This blog focuses on the changes to OPM3 and The Standards for Program and Portfolio Management and their potential benefits for organisations.
The second edition of PMI’s Standard for Portfolio Management describes good practices in the discipline of portfolio management focused on ‘doing the right work’. It does not matter how good an organisation is at delivering projects and programs if the outputs are of no real benefit to the organisation. On-time, on-budget and not used is just a wast of money and resources.
The new standard builds on the processes for managing a portfolio of projects and programs defined in the first edition to include Portfolio Governance to include the responsibility of senior management to be accountable for investment decisions throughout the portfolio lifecycle; and Portfolio Risk Management. The key element in portfolio risk management is not avoiding risk, but balancing the types of risk accepted to deliver the maximum potential return from the organisation’s overall investment in its portfolio of projects and programs. Portfolio Governance makes sure the investmant is managed effectively.
We have been advocating the need for PMI’s standards to include Governance since 2005, Patrick Weaver presented a series of papers at PMI Congresses that appear to have had some influence on the new Standard. For copies of the papers see: http://www.mosaicprojects.com.au/Resources_Papers.html#Governance
The most significant difference between the First edition and the Second Editions of the Standard for Program Management is in the development of program-specific knowledge areas. These included knowledge areas that are critical to successful program management as well as knowledge areas that are significantly different at a program level than at a project level.
A second significant difference between the two editions was in the removal of “themes” that were introduced in the first edition.
- The theme of Program Stakeholder Management was expanded into a knowledge area.
- The theme of Program Governance was significantly expanded and also became a knowledge area.
- The theme of Benefits Management was incorporated into the body of the document.
The challenge now facing organisations is to make effective use of the resources represented by these new PMI Standards; this is where OPM3 comes into play.
OPM3® – Second Edition
OPM3 is a model for measuring project management maturity against a comprehensive set of best practices based on the PMBOK® Guide (projects), Program and Portfolio Management Standards. The updated OPM3 Standard, its self assessment module and the more capable OPM3 ProductSuite are fully aligned with the new PMI standards and have incorporated the concept of Organizational Enablers, previously only found in ProductSuite. Organizational Enablers are the attitudinal and structural elements of an organisation that enable the efficient management of projects and programs.
The updated OPM3 tools and reports allow assessment results to be categorised by Knowledge Area, by Business Results, and by Balanced Scorecard to ensure any planned improvements are focused on the areas of a business that provide the greatest return on investment. In short, OPM3 is the tool that allows organisations to create a better value proposition from their investment in projects and programs.
For more on OPM3 see: http://www.mosaicprojects.com.au/OPM3.html (this page will be progressively updated as we develop a better understanding of the new OPM3 tools – Mosaic is one of the very few organisations in the Asia Pacific region with consultants qualifed to deliver OPM3 ProductSuite assessments ).
Pat Weaver
Lynda Bourne
Aavssitedev's Blog
Ms. Bourne,
Thanks for keeping us up to speed on the doings of the great PMI in the sky. This is a valuable overview of what’s happening out there.
Much appreciated,
Alex
Extract from an Email received from John Schlichter, PMI’s Project Manager for the OPM3 1st Edition:
I came across your blog, and found two things you may want to look at:
1. The original OPM3 standard, which was published in 2003, included best practices in governance.
2. Similarly, the content of Organizational Enablers came from OPM3 first edition. These Organizational Enablers were categorized differently in ProductSuite which was released after OPM3 first edition, and OPM3 second edition adopted the new categorization, but the content itself is not new. In fact, developing the original Organizational Enablers is what took most of our time on the original OPM3 first edition program, which I led on PMI’s behalf for nearly 5 years.
Cheers.
John Schlichter
CEO, OPM Experts LLC
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