Introducing the BPMM specification will address at least five current challenges to the success of enterprise systems: Management

t has few standards for appraising the maturity of their business process workflows and needs proven methods for identifying the risks process weaknesses pose for deploying enterprise IT projects and achieving business objectives. Management has few proven methods for appraising the fidelity between how tasks are actually performed and how they are described in model-based representations of process workflows. This problem compromises the validity of system requirements, the accuracy of use cases and model-based representations, and the effectiveness of the application in use. Management is often unaware of the extent to which organic growth or acquisitions have resulted in multiple ways of performing similar tasks. The creation of standard, tailorable processes simplifies the requirements for enterprise applications and as a result will reduce the complexity of enterprise systems. Organizations have few proven methods for appraising a suppliers capability for delivering outsourced IT and other business services within the parameters claimed in a proposal. Further they need a proven basis for specifying contractual requirements for improvements in a suppliers business processes. Management needs guidance on how to implement the business process foundations required for organizational agility and lower operating costs.

Maturity Levels
Like all maturity models guided by the Process Maturity Framework, the BPMM is divided into five maturity levels that represent different states through which an organization is transformed as its processes and capability are improved. These

successive stages of maturity include: Level 1: Initial wherein business processes are performed in inconsistent sometimes ad hoc ways with results that are difficult to predict. Level 2: Managed wherein management stabilizes the work within local work units to ensure that it can be performed in a repeatable way that satisfies the workgroups primary commitments. However, work units performing similar tasks may use different procedures. Level 3: Standardized wherein common, standard processes are synthesized from best practices identified in the work groups and tailoring guidelines are provided for supporting different business needs. Standard processes provide an economy of scale and a foundation for learning from common measures and experience. Level 4: Predictable wherein the capabilities enabled by standard processes are exploited and provided back into the work units. Process performance is managed statistically throughout the workflow to understand and control variation so that process outcomes can be predicted from intermediate states. Level 5: Innovating wherein both proactive and opportunistic improvement actions seek innovations that can close gaps between the organizations current capability and the capability required to achieve its business objectives. Maturity levels 2-5 are composed of process areas that collectively enable the capability to be achieved at that level. Each process area is designed to achieve specific goals in creating, supporting, or sustaining the organizational state characteristic of the level. Each process area consists of a collection of integrated best practices that indicate what should be done, but not how it should be done. Thus, organizations are free to define their own methods and approaches to satisfying the goals and objectives of each process area.

The BPMM Uses

There are four primary ways in which the BPMM will be used and each will have different requirements for appraisals. Guiding business process improvement programs The BPMM is designed to guide improvement programs and this is anticipated to be its most frequent use. Improvement programs should be initiated with an evaluation of the organizations current strengths and weaknesses. The Starter Appraisal provides findings sufficient to initiate an improvement program. Either Starter Appraisals or Progress Appraisals can be used to determine the status and effectiveness of improvement activities during their deployment. Progress Appraisals are sufficient for internal evaluations of maturity level status. However, if the organization wants to present its maturity results publicly, a Confirmatory Appraisal would be required. Assessing risk for developing and deploying enterprise applications The BPMM will be used to identify risks to the successful implementation of systems and to provide guidance on the actions to be taken to improve them prior to system deployment. The importance of reducing the risks to enterprise applications requires information derived from either a Progress Appraisal or a Confirmatory Appraisal. If an external organization is developing the system, findings from a Confirmatory Appraisal may be included in the agreements as actions the customer will take to prepare for system deployment. Evaluating the capability of suppliers The CMM for software was originally developed to help DoD move beyond using lowest price as the basis for selecting among bidders. Similarly, organizations need a trusted and open standard against which to evaluate the capability of their vendors for meeting their service level, quality, price, and functionality

commitments. They will want to perform Supplier Appraisals during the selection process and use Progress, Supplier, or Confirmatory Appraisals during contract performance to evaluate progress in eliminating process deficiencies identified during source selection. Benchmarking Management may want to evaluate where they stand relative to the maturity of business processes in their industry segment. Progress Appraisals will provide an approximate benchmark, while Confirmatory Appraisals will provide more rigorous benchmarking results and measures. OMG can develop repositories of data and information collected during appraisals regarding industry trends and best practices in different areas of business process.

Conclusions
BPMM provides a framework to improve end-to-end business processes Improvements done when the organization is ready for them Approach based on proven maturity model concepts (developed by original authors of SW-CMM, CMMI and People CMM) Leverages industry experience with maturity model-based improvement Targets improvements for manageable units to start Enables effective six sigma use at all levels of maturity