Process
Areas
(staged)

Level 2
 
RM
 PP
 PMC
 SAM
 MA
 PPQA
 CM
Level 3
 
RD
 TS
 PI
 VE
 VA
 OPF
 OPD
 OT
 IPM
 RSKM
 DAR
Level 4
 
OPP
 QPM
Level 5
 
OID
 CAR

 Maturity Level 5: Optimizing

At maturity level 5, an organization continually improves its processes based on a quantitative understanding of the common causes of variation inherent in processes. (See the definition of “common cause of process variation” in the glossary.)

Maturity level 5 focuses on continually improving process performance through incremental and innovative process and technological improvements. Quantitative process improvement objectives for the organization are established, continually revised to reflect changing business objectives, and used as criteria in managing process improvement. The effects of deployed process improvements are measured and evaluated against the quantitative process improvement objectives. Both the defined processes and the organization’s set of standard processes are targets of measurable improvement activities.

A critical distinction between maturity levels 4 and 5 is the type of process variation addressed. At maturity level 4, the organization is concerned with addressing special causes of process variation and providing statistical predictability of the results. Although processes may produce predictable results, the results may be insufficient to achieve the established objectives. At maturity level 5, the organization is concerned with addressing common causes of process variation and changing the process (to shift the mean of the process performance or reduce the inherent process variation experienced) to improve process performance and to achieve the established quantitative process improvement objectives.

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Process
Areas
(continuous)


Process
management  
 
OPF
 OPD
 OT  
 
OPP 
 
OID
Project
management
 
PP
 PMC
 SAM 
 
IPM
 RSKM
 
QPM
Engineering
 
RD
 RM
 TS
 PI
 VE
 VA
Support
 
CM
 PPQA
 MA
 
DAR
 CAR