The Basic Process Management process areas provide the organization with a capability to document and share best practices, organizational process assets, and learning across the organization.

Figure 4.1 provides a bird’s-eye view of the interactions among the Basic Process Management process areas and with other process area categories. As illustrated in Figure 4.1, the Organizational Process Focus process area helps the organization to plan, implement, and deploy organizational process improvements based on an understanding of the current strengths and weaknesses of the organization’s processes and process assets.

Figure 4.1: Basic Process Management Process Areas

Candidate improvements to the organization’s processes are obtained through various means. These include process improvement proposals, measurement of the processes, lessons learned in implementing the processes, and results of process appraisal and product evaluation activities.

The Organizational Process Definition process area establishes and maintains the organization’s set of standard processes, work environment standards, and other assets based on the process needs and objectives of the organization. These other assets include descriptions of lifecycle models, process tailoring guidelines, and process-related documentation and data. Projects tailor the organization’s set of standard processes to create their defined processes. The other assets support tailoring as well as implementation of the defined processes. Experiences and work products from performing these defined processes, including measurement data, process descriptions, process artifacts, and lessons learned, are incorporated as appropriate into the organization’s set of standard processes and other assets. With the +IPPD addition, Organizational Process Definition +IPPD provides IPPD rules and guidelines to the projects.

The Organizational Training process area identifies the strategic training needs of the organization as well as the tactical training needs that are common across projects and support groups. In particular, training is developed or obtained to develop the skills required to perform the organization’s set of standard processes. The main components of training include a managed training development program, documented plans, personnel with appropriate knowledge, and mechanisms for measuring the effectiveness of the training program.