Abstract:
Planning and implementing organizational process improvement based on a thorough understanding of the current strengths and weaknesses of the organization’s processes and process assets is the main focus of organizational processes.
The organization's processes include the organization's set of standard processes and the defined processes that are tailored from them. The organizational process assets are used to establish, maintain,implement, and improve the defined processes.
Candidate improvements to the organizational process assets are obtained from various sources, including measurement of the processes, lessons learned in implementing the processes, results of process appraisals, results of product evaluation activities, results of benchmarking against other organizations' processes, and
recommendations from other improvement initiatives in the organization.
Process improvement occurs within the context of the organization’s needs and is used to address the organization's objectives. The organization encourages participation in process-improvement activities
by those who will perform the process. The responsibility for facilitating and managing the organization's process-improvement activities, including coordinating the participation of others, is typically assigned to
a process group. The organization provides the long-term commitment and resources required to sponsor this group.
Careful planning is required to ensure that process-improvement efforts across the organization are adequately managed and implemented.
The organization’s planning for process-improvement results in a process-improvement plan. The organization’s process-improvement plan will address appraisal planning, process action planning, pilot
planning, and deployment planning. Appraisal plans describe the appraisal timeline and schedule, the scope of the appraisal, the resources required to perform the appraisal, the reference model against which the appraisal will be performed, and the logistics for the appraisal. Process action plans usually result from appraisals and document how specific improvements targeting the weaknesses uncovered by an appraisal will be implemented. In cases in which it is determined that the improvement described in the process action plan
should be tested on a small group before deploying it across the organization, a pilot plan is generated. Finally, when the improvement is to be deployed, a deployment plan is used. This plan describes when
and how the improvement will be deployed across the organization.
Specific and Generic Goals
SG 1 Determine Process-Improvement Opportunities
Strengths, weaknesses, and improvement opportunities for the organization's processes are identified periodically and as needed.
SG 2 Plan and Implement Process-Improvement Activities
Improvements are planned and implemented, organizational process assets are deployed, and process-related experiences are incorporated into the organizational process assets.
GG 3 Institutionalize a Defined Process
The process is institutionalized as a defined process.
