Practice: Organizational Process Focus (OPF)
The purpose of Organizational Process Focus (OPF) is to plan, implement, and deploy organizational process improvements based on a thorough understanding of the current strengths and weaknesses of the organization’s processes and process assets.
Relationships
Goals

The following specific goals are associated with this process area:

SG 1 Determine Process Improvement Opportunities

Strengths, weaknesses, and improvement opportunities for the organization's processes are identified periodically and as needed.

Strengths, weaknesses, and improvement opportunities may be determined relative to a process standard or model such as a CMMI model or International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standard. The process improvements should be selected specifically to address the organization’s needs.

SG 2 Plan and Implement Process Improvements

Process actions that address improvements to the organization’s processes and process assets are planned and implemented.

Successful implementation of improvements requires participation in process action planning and implementation by process owners, those performing the process, and support organizations.

SG 3 Deploy Organizational Process Assets and Incorporate Lessons Learned

The organizational process assets are deployed across the organization and process-related experiences are incorporated into the organizational process assets.

The specific practices within this specific goal describe ongoing activities. New opportunities to benefit from the organizational process assets and changes to them may arise throughout the life of each project. Deployment of the standard processes and other organizational process assets must be continually supported within the organization, particularly for new projects at startup.

Main Description

The organization's processes include all the processes used by the organization and its projects. Candidate improvements to the organization's processes and process assets are obtained from various sources, including measurement of the processes, lessons learned in implementing the processes, results of process appraisals, results of product evaluation activities, results of benchmarking against other organizations’ processes, and recommendations from other improvement initiatives in the organization.

Process improvement occurs within the context of the organization’s needs and is used to address the organization’s objectives. The organization encourages participation in process improvement activities by those who will perform the process. The responsibility for facilitating and managing the organization’s process improvement activities, including coordinating the participation of others, is typically assigned to a process group. The organization provides the long-term commitment and resources required to sponsor this group and to ensure the effective and timely deployment of the improvements.

Careful planning is required to ensure that process improvement efforts across the organization are adequately managed and implemented. The organization’s planning for process improvement results in a process improvement plan.

The organization’s process improvement plan will address appraisal planning, process action planning, pilot planning, and deployment planning. Appraisal plans describe the appraisal timeline and schedule, the scope of the appraisal, the resources required to perform the appraisal, the reference model against which the appraisal will be performed, and the logistics for the appraisal.

Process action plans usually result from appraisals and document how specific improvements targeting the weaknesses uncovered by an appraisal will be implemented. In cases in which it is determined that the improvement described in the process action plan should be tested on a small group before deploying it across the organization, a pilot plan is generated.

Finally, when the improvement is to be deployed, a deployment plan is used. This plan describes when and how the improvement will be deployed across the organization.

Organizational process assets are used to describe, implement, and improve the organization's processes

Additional Information
Refer to the Organizational Process Definition (OPD) process area for more information about the organizational process assets.