Purpose:

Establish and maintain a usable set of organizational process assets, work environment standards, and rules and guidelines for teams.

Objective:

Establishes organizational expectations for establishing and maintaining a set of standard processes for use by the organization, making organizational process assets available across the organization, and establishing rules and guidelines for teams.

Description:

Organizational process assets enable consistent process execution across the organization and provide a basis for cumulative, long-term benefits to the organization.

The organization’s process asset library supports organizational learning and process improvement by allowing the sharing of best practices and lessons learned across the organization.

The organization’s set of standard processes also describes standard interactions with suppliers. Supplier interactions are characterized by the following typical items: deliverables expected from suppliers, acceptance criteria applicable to those deliverables, standards (e.g., architecture and technology standards), and standard milestone and progress reviews.

The organization’s “set of standard processes” is tailored by projects to create their defined processes. Other organizational process assets are used to support tailoring and implementing defined processes. Work environment standards are used to guide the creation of project work environments. Rules and guidelines for teams are used to aid in their structuring, formation, and operation.

A “standard process” is composed of other processes (i.e., subprocesses) or process elements. A “process element” is the fundamental (i.e., atomic) unit of process definition that describes activities and tasks to consistently perform work. The process architecture provides rules for connecting the process elements of a standard process. The organization’s set of standard processes can include multiple process architectures.

Organizational process assets can be organized in many ways, depending on the implementation of the Organizational Process Definition process area. Examples include the following:

    • Descriptions of lifecycle models can be part of the organization’s set of standard processes or they can be documented separately.
    • The organization’s set of standard processes can be stored in the organization’s process asset library or it can be stored separately.
    • A single repository can contain both measurements and process related documentation, or they can be stored separately.

Entrance Criteria:

  • Need for an Organizational Process Definition

Exit Criteria:

  • Organizational Process Definition

Process and Procedures:

Tailoring Guidelines:

Using Online-PMO’s Organizational Process Definition process and procedures, organizations can tailor the process to fit their organization, or may choose to purchase an Organizational Process Definition rather than to develop them.

Process Verification Record(s):

  • Submission of lessons learned to the organization’s process asset library
    • Stored By: [PMO Director]
  • Submission of measurement data to the organization’s measurement repository
    • Stored By: [PMO Director]
  • Status of the change requests submitted to modify the organization’s standard process
    • Stored By: [PMO Director]
  • Record of non-standard tailoring requests
    • Stored By: [PMO Director]

Measure(s):

  • Percentage of projects using the process architectures and process elements of the organization’s set of standard processes
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  • Defect density of each process element of the organization’s set of standard processes
    • Maintained By: <?>
    • Submitted By: <?>
    • Frequency of Submission: <?>
  • Schedule for development of a process or process change
    • Maintained By: <?>
    • Submitted By: <?>
    • Frequency of Submission: <?>

References: