... to meet the business requirement.

Process capability is measured by the achievement of the specific and generic goals that apply to a predefined set of process areas in an organisation. There are five maturity levels, each a layer in the foundation for ongoing process improvement, designated by the numbers 1 through 5.

At level 1 the specified minimum practices for each process must be performed - the base practices. Usually the satisfactory performance of these base practices is highly dependent on the individuals involved.

An implemented process is assessed by examining the evidence that the practices are being performed. At the subsequent levels of capability these practices are enhanced through increasing attention to process related documentation and greater attention to planning, verification, tracking, standards, measurement, etc. The characteristics of the processes that have been implemented are improved at each subsequent levels.

Move up through the levels as and when appropriate for the business. Ensure each practice is properly institutionalised so that process improvement can be sustained. Stop at the level appropriate for the business. The objective is to implement the practices (and subpractices) that will increase the organisation's capability in the selected processes over time. Each maturity level stabilizes an important part of the organisation's processes and provides a way to predict the future performance of an organisation within a given discipline or set of disciplines.

Experience has shown that organisations do their best when they focus their process-improvement efforts:

• on a manageable number of process areas
• that require increasingly sophisticated effort
• as the organisation improves.

Institutionalisation is a critical aspect of process improvement and is an important concept within each maturity level. Institutionalisation implies that the process is ingrained in the way the work is performed.

Improvement roadmaps are used to describe the activities and the characteristics that one would normally expect to see at each maturity level for a process. The roadmap does not prescribe how an organisation is to improve its processes; rather, it describes the attributes of an organisation's process maturity at five levels of maturity. These maturity levels prescribe an ordering of how to prioritise process improvement actions.