According to the PMBOK® Guide, Enterprise Environmental Factors (EEFs) refer to conditions, not under the control of the project team, that influence, constrain, or direct the project. These can be internal or external to the organization.
The PMI standards classify Infrastructure as a primary Internal EEF. Internal EEFs arise from the organization itself and include:
Infrastructure: This includes existing facilities, equipment, organizational telecommunications channels, information technology hardware, availability, and capacity. For example, the quality of a company ' s server network directly impacts a software project ' s development speed.
Organizational Culture, Structure, and Governance: Vision, mission, values, beliefs, cultural norms, and hierarchy.
Geographic Distribution of Facilities and Resources: Factory locations, virtual teams, and shared systems.
Resource Availability: Physical and team resource constraints.
Employee Capability: Existing human resources ' expertise, skills, and specialized knowledge.
Analysis of other options:
Cultural influences (Option A): While culture is an EEF, the PMBOK® Guide specifically lists " Organizational Culture " as the internal factor. " Cultural influences " is often used in a broader context that can imply external societal cultures, making " Infrastructure " a more definitive internal technical EEF in PMI terminology.
Physical environmental elements (Option B): These are considered External EEFs. They include working conditions, weather, and constraints imposed by the physical geography of the project location.
Commercial databases (Option C): These are considered External EEFs. They include benchmarking results, standardized cost estimating data, and industry risk study information provided by third parties.
Per PMI standards, understanding the internal Infrastructure is vital during the planning phase to ensure the project management plan is realistic regarding the tools and facilities available to the team.
