Ensure continuous improvement of the process in fulfilling the relevant business objectives of the organization.

The purpose of this generic practice is to select and systematically deploy process and technology improvements that contribute to meeting established quality and process-performance objectives.

Refer to the Organizational Innovation and Deployment process area for information about selecting and deploying incremental and innovative improvements that measurably improve the organization's processes and technologies.

Optimizing the processes that are agile and innovative depends on the participation of an empowered workforce aligned with the business values and objectives of the organization. The organization’s ability to rapidly respond to changes and opportunities is enhanced by finding ways to accelerate and share learning. Improvement of the processes is inherently part of everybody’s role, resulting in a cycle of continual improvement.

Subpractices

1.    Establish and maintain quantitative process improvement objectives that support the organization’s business objectives.

The quantitative process improvement objectives may be specific to the individual process or they may be defined for a broader scope (i.e., for a set of processes), with the individual processes contributing to achieving these objectives. Objectives that are specific to the individual process are typically allocated from quantitative objectives established for a broader scope.

These process improvement objectives are primarily derived from the organization’s business objectives and from a detailed understanding of process capability. These objectives are the criteria used to judge whether the process performance is quantitatively improving the organization’s ability to meet its business objectives. These process improvement objectives are often set to values beyond the current process performance, and both incremental and innovative technological improvements may be needed to achieve these objectives. These objectives may also be revised frequently to continue to drive the improvement of the process (i.e., when an objective is achieved, it may be set to a new value that is again beyond the new process performance).

These process improvement objectives may be the same as, or a refinement of, the objectives established in the “Establish Quantitative Objectives for the Process” generic practice, as long as they can serve as both drivers and criteria for successful process improvement.

2.    Identify process improvements that would result in measurable improvements to process performance.

Process improvements include both incremental changes and innovative technological improvements. The innovative technological improvements are typically pursued as efforts that are separately planned, performed, and managed. Piloting is often performed. These efforts often address specific areas of the processes that are determined by analyzing process performance and identifying specific opportunities for significant measurable improvement.

3.    Define strategies and manage deployment of selected process improvements based on the quantified expected benefits, the estimated costs and impacts, and the measured change to process performance.

The costs and benefits of these improvements are estimated quantitatively, and the actual costs and benefits are measured. Benefits are primarily considered relative to the organization’s quantitative process improvement objectives. Improvements are made to both the organization’s set of standard processes and the defined processes.

Managing deployment of the process improvements includes piloting changes and implementing adjustments where appropriate, addressing potential and real barriers to deployment, minimizing disruption to ongoing efforts, and managing risks.