Enterprise Environment Factors (EEF)
You need different approaches to deal effectively with the cultural, political, and legal environments the project is operating within the organization. Enterprise Environment Factors (EEFs) include all policies, practices, procedures, and legislation that exist both inside and outside of the organization that will impact the way you manage a project.
This ranges from environmental, anti-discrimination, and occupational health and safety legislation to the choice of the project management system used by the organization, its personnel management policies, and PMI’s Code of Ethics. Some elements of the EEF are mandatory, while others represent good practice or cultural norms. But regardless of the nature of the factor, you have to work within the physical and cultural environment to be effective.
These are very important inputs for project planning. You must know the organizational culture, norms, and policies for your project success.
Examples of EEFs:
- Organizational culture, processes, and infrastructure
- Product standards
- Quality standards
- Government standards
- Market standards and conditions
- Codes of conduct
- Staffing guidelines
- Reviews and training records
- Work authorization systems
- Political unrest
- Organizational communication channels
- Risk databases
- Project management information systems (PMIS) — Automation tools like scheduling tools
Enterprise environmental factors are so important that they can enhance or reduce the project management options and positively or negatively impact project success.
What Are The 4 Major Enterprise Environmental Factors?
As a project manager, you will see that Enterprise Environmental Factors are inputs to many processes in Project Management. The conditions that are not under the control of the project team are categorized as Enterprise Environmental Factors. They influence, constrain, or direct the project. That’s why the role of a Project Manager should always include taking the Enterprise Environmental Factors into consideration when planning the project. They are the inputs to most planning processes.
Here are the four major groups of Enterprise Environmental Factors:
Enterprise Environmental Factor #1: Organizational culture, structure, and governance
As a project manager, you cannot affect the management of your company or management hierarchy of your company. So this can be considered an Enterprise Environmental Factor. However, the approach of your management and hierarchy in the company directly affects project management in a company. So before conducting the planning of the project, you should know the culture and management structure of your company. That’s ideal for avoiding incompatibilities between the project and the company itself.
Enterprise Environmental Factor #2: Government or Industry standards
The government and industry standards directly affect the project but these are some conditions that you cannot control. That’s why they are another example of Enterprise Environmental Factors.
Example: If you want to produce a health product, like a blood pressure monitor, it must be compliant with the standards of the World Health Organization (WHO). If you will market this product in the USA, it needs to be compliant and approved by the FDA. Since these standards will impact your project scope, they are considered Enterprise Environmental Factors.
Enterprise Environmental Factor #3: Political climate
The political climate is very important for projects. For example, if your project will be executed in a country that has an embargo, most probably you will have procurement issues. Or, if during the execution of a government project, the country of your company and your customer’s company start to have a diplomatic crisis, this might affect your business as well. Therefore, the political climate is an important Enterprise Environmental Factor.
Enterprise Environmental Factor #4: Marketplace conditions
The last Enterprise Environmental Factor example is the marketplace conditions. Let’s consider that you are working in a company which is having an economic crisis. This will affect the revenue of your company directly. Respectively, your projects—especially the budget—might be affected as well.
What are Organizational Process Assets (OPA)?
Most organizations have developed a range of templates, contracts, registers, and assessment tools to assist the management of their projects. Organizations have also acquired knowledge in the form of lessons learned—and the organization’s knowledge base can be very useful.
Organizational Process Assets include anything the organization has acquired that you can use in the management of the project. They include formal and informal plans, policies, procedures, and guidelines. These are very important for the planning stage, irrespective of the nature of the project. Whether your project is long-term or short-term, OPAs are a must.
Common OPAs include:
- Standardized guidelines
- Proposal evaluation criteria
- Work breakdown structure templates
- Project schedule network diagram templates
- Risk templates
- Organizational standard processes
- Project closure guidelines
- Defect management processes
- Lessons learned and historical databases
- Change control procedures
- Financial control procedures
- Project files
Enterprise Environmental Factors Internal to Organization
This refers to factors existing within a marketing firm. They are also called controllable factors because the company has control over these factors. It can alter or modify factors such as personnel, physical facilities, organization, and function means (like marketing mix) to suit the environment.
Internal factors influencing the marketing function include:
Top Management
The organizational structure, board of directors, professionalization of management, etc. Factors like the amount of support the top management enjoys from different levels of employees, shareholders, and board of directors have an important influence on marketing decisions and their implementation.
Finance and Accounting
Accounting refers to the measurement of revenue and costs to help marketing know how well it is achieving its objectives. Finance refers to funding and using funds to carry out the marketing plan. Financial factors include financial policies, financial position, and capital structure.
Research and Development
Research and development refers to designing the product to be safe and attractive. Technological capabilities determine a company’s ability to innovate and compete.
Manufacturing
Responsible for producing the desired quality and quantity of products. Factors influencing competitiveness include production capacity, technology, and efficiency of the production apparatus, distribution, logistics, etc.
Purchasing
Purchasing refers to the procurement of goods and services from external agencies. It is a strategic activity of the business.
Company Image and Brand Equity
The image of the company is important for raising finance, forming joint ventures or other alliances, soliciting marketing intermediaries, entering purchase or sales contracts, launching new products, etc.
In an organization, marketing resources like the marketing team, quality of marketing, brand equity, and distribution network have a direct bearing
