Continuous process improvement-why wait till Level 5?

Continuous improvement is generally considered to be a paradigm shift that occurs when organizations move from the managed to the optimizing process (from SEI CMM Level 4 to Level 5). Continuous improvement needs to start early to enable and guide the gradual evolution and maturation of process definition across key process areas and maturity levels. It is a well-known principle of process change that major changes start at the top. Besides changes starting at the top, as was the case in our organization, we needed to address two major organizational behavior tendencies in our evolution from CMM Level 1 to Level 2: (1) viewing process definition as an all-or-nothing proposition instead of a a gradual evolution; and (2) waiting for few large changes instead of implementing many small incremental changes. Data from our company´s efforts is presented to support the following conclusions. Continuous improvement as a way of life need not wait until organizations acquire the ability to measure, verify and improve processes at higher maturity levels. A simple and effective mechanism can be implemented to enable and guide the gradual evolution and maturation of process definition even in low maturity organizations. A tendency to view process definition as an all-or-nothing proposition can be overcome by empowering practitioners to implement changes and by providing rapid feedback. Official, perceived and actual processes begin to converge when practitioners´ suggestions are implemented in an institutionalized way. Starting to define processes is itself the major improvement activity in Level-1 organizations