Summary

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

Description

Establishing and maintaining process action plans typically involves the following roles: • Management steering committees that set strategies and oversee process improvement activities • Process groups that facilitate and manage process improvement activities • Process action teams that define and implement process actions • Process owners that manage deployment • Practitioners that perform the process


Stakeholder involvement helps to obtain buy-in on 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 by targeting improvements that were defined to address weaknesses and that were usually uncovered by appraisals.

Example Work Products



  1. Organization's approved process action plans


Subpractices



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

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



2. Establish process action teams to implement 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 to be addressed
  • Procedures for planning and tracking process actions
  • Strategies for piloting and implementing process actions
  • Responsibility and authority for implementing process actions
  • Resources, schedules, and assignments for implementing process actions
  • Methods for determining the effectiveness of process actions
  • Risks associated with process action plans



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

5. Revise process action plans as necessary.