Establish and maintain process action plans to address improvements to the organization's processes and process assets.

Establishing and maintaining process action plans typically involves the following roles:

·   Management steering committees to set strategies and oversee process improvement activities

·   Process group staff to facilitate and manage process improvement activities

·   Process action teams to define and implement process actions

·   Process owners to manage deployment

·   Practitioners to perform the process

This involvement helps to obtain buy-in on the process improvements and increases the likelihood of effective deployment.

Process action plans are detailed implementation plans. These plans differ from the organization’s process improvement plan in that they are plans targeting specific improvements that have been defined to address weaknesses usually uncovered by appraisals.

Typical Work Products

1.    Organization's approved process action plans

Subpractices

1.    Identify strategies, approaches, and actions to address the identified process improvements.

New, unproven, and major changes are piloted before they are incorporated into normal use.

2.    Establish process action teams to implement the actions.

The teams and people performing the process improvement actions are called “process action teams.” Process action teams typically include process owners and those who perform the process.

3.    Document process action plans.

Process action plans typically cover the following:

·   Process improvement infrastructure

·   Process improvement objectives

·   Process improvements that will be addressed

·   Procedures for planning and tracking process actions

·   Strategies for piloting and implementing the process actions

·   Responsibility and authority for implementing the process actions

·   Resources, schedules, and assignments for implementing the process actions

·   Methods for determining the effectiveness of the process actions

·   Risks associated with process action plans

4.    Review and negotiate process action plans with relevant stakeholders.

5.    Review process action plans as necessary.