OPM Experts LLC and Evidence Based Research Inc. Partner to Assess Organizational Project Management Maturity and Agility

In 1998, OPM Experts’ CEO John Schlichter launched a research program on behalf of the Project Management Institute to create a model designed to assess and develop the ability of organizations to execute their strategies adaptively through non-routine, temporary endeavors, i.e. projects. Under the auspices of the PMI, a team of nearly 800 people from 35 countries produced OPM3. John Schlichter directed the team from its inception through delivery of the prototype model nearly five years later. OPM3 was first published in 2003. That same year the U.S. Department of Defense published a book written by David S. Alberts and Richard E. Hayes under the auspices of the CCRP and titled Power to the Edge. This phrase “power to the edge” refers to the ability of an organization to dynamically synchronize its actions, achieve command and control (C2) agility, and increase the speed of command over a robust, networked grid. Power to the Edge was the first in a series of works that set the context for a trajectory of thinking that led to the N2C2M2 in 2009.

The N2C2M2 was developed by a NATO Studies, Analysis and Simulation Research Study Group (RSG), SAS-065.  This group was chartered because NATO recognized that it needed new ways to think about the command arrangements required for successful complex endeavors. NATO Operations such as Bosnia, Kosovo, and Pakistani earthquake relief were considered different and challenging enough to require reconsideration of how to do business. Fifteen NATO and three non-NATO nations provided expertise to the RSG. Individual nations, including the US, supported the effort because they saw themselves as needing new ways to carry out and implement decision making in a variety of non-warfighting areas, including logistics, disaster relief, nation building, counter-drug, and evacuation operations.

EBR’s President, Dr. Richard E. Hayes, was one of the two official US members of SAS-065. Moreover, the efforts of the group took three books he had co-authored as starting points for its work: Power to the Edge (2003), Understanding Command and Control (2006) and Planning Complex Endeavors (2007) Dr. Hayes was responsible for developing the case study application methodology, leading five of the case studies, coordinating the other case studies, and integrating the results of the case studies for the final report. Dr. Jimmie McEver (EBR Scientist and Program Manager) and Ms. Danielle Wynn (EBR Operations Research Analyst) also served as key members of SAS-065.

As Jim March wrote in The Pursuit of Organizational Intelligence, “It is not clear that organizational purpose can be portrayed as unitary, or that the multiple purposes of an organization are reliably constant." In an age of increasing global business volatility and uncertainty, this organizational challenge is becoming the new normal. The roles that the principals of OPM Experts LLC and EBR played in the development of OPM3 and N2C2M2 respectively form the basis of a joint capability to provide a strategic service offering to any organization whose success depends on executing projects which rely on collaboration within a larger value chain or supply chain, even when there is neither unity of command nor unity of intent.