High maturity process areas describe practices that further align organizational, project, and support processes with the business objectives of the organization. These process areas describe practices at both the organizational and project level for establishing objectives for quality and process performance, monitoring variation in the organization’s and projects’ processes, evaluating the impacts of proposed changes to those processes, and systematically deploying processes across the organization. To effectively implement these practices, mature measurement and analysis processes are needed.

The acquirer achieves an effective implementation of high maturity practices by ensuring that all members of the organization collect and analyze measurements and propose and evaluate changes to processes. In other words, high maturity practices should be integrated as much as possible into the practices in other process areas.

The high maturity process areas of CMMI-ACQ are as follows:

·         Organizational Process Performance (OPP)

·         Quantitative Project Management (OPM)

·         Causal Analysis and Resolution (CAR)

·         Organizational Innovation and Deployment (OID)

At the organizational level, Organizational Process Performance practices are used to derive quantitative objectives for quality and process performance from the organization’s business objectives. The organization provides projects and support groups with common measures, process-performance baselines, and process-performance models. These organizational assets support quantitative project management and the statistical management of critical subprocesses for both projects and support groups.

The organization analyzes the process-performance data collected from these defined processes to develop a quantitative understanding of product quality, service quality, and the performance of the organization’s set of standard processes.

At the project level, acquirers use Quantitative Project Management practices when applying quantitative and statistical techniques to manage process performance and product quality. Quality and process-performance objectives for the project are based on the objectives established by the organization. Through an evaluation of which subprocesses will help the project best achieve its objectives, the project’s defined process is composed.

The project’s defined process comprises, in part, process elements and subprocesses for which process performance can be predicted. At a minimum, the process variation of subprocesses critical to achieving the project’s quality and process-performance objectives must be understood. Corrective action is taken when special causes of process variation are identified.

Acquirers use Causal Analysis and Resolution practices to guide identification of root causes of selected defects and other problems and taking action to prevent their reoccurrence. While the project’s defined processes are the principal targets for identifying the cause of the defect, the process improvement proposals they create target the organization’s set of standard processes, which will prevent recurrence of the selected defects across the organization. These processes may be used to improve the performance of a subprocess, focusing on the central tendency of a product or process attribute, its spread, or both.

At the organizational level, Organizational Innovation and Deployment practices are used to select and deploy proposed incremental and innovative improvements that improve the organization’s ability to meet its quality and process-performance objectives. Identifying promising incremental and innovative improvements should involve an empowered workforce aligned with the business values and objectives of the organization. The selection of improvements to deploy is based on a quantitative understanding of the benefits and costs of deploying candidate improvements, and the funding available.

Together, the high maturity processes enable the organization with an improved capability to achieve its quantitative objectives for quality and process performance.