The Process and Enterprise Maturity Model (PEMM™) is a tool to help organizations plan and manage their transitions to process. PEMM consists of two parts: a framework for assessing the maturity of any particular business process, and another for assessing the maturity of an enterprise as a whole.
The process framework identifies five enablers of process performance: the design of the process, its metrics, the capabilities of the people who are its performers, the infrastructure that supports the performers, and the executive who is the owner of the process. A fundamental insight of PEMM is that the stronger and more robust these enablers, the higher the performance of which the process will be capable. That is, better trained performers, more sophisticated metrics, a more powerful owner, etc., all enable a stronger process that in turn is able to deliver better results. PEMM identifies four levels of enabler maturity (referred to as P1 through P4), which are defined in terms of testable propositions. An enabler is said to be at P2, for instance, if the P1 and P2 statements about that enabler are true, but some of the P3 statements are not. Organizations can assess any process in terms of these five enablers and four maturity levels to identify gaps and plan actions to fill them.
Another insight of PEMM is that enterprise maturity is a prerequisite for process maturity. That is to say, an organization cannot advance its process enablers in a vacuum. Rather, it needs four enterprise capabilities in order to do so: leadership, culture, expertise, and a governance system. Progressively stronger versions of these capabilities are needed to advance the enablers of a process (and hence the performance of the process) to higher levels. Corresponding to the four levels of process maturity, there are four levels of enterprise maturity (E1 through E4), similarly defined by a set of propositions. Achieving enterprise maturity E2, for instance, is a prerequisite for advancing a process to level P2. Organizations can use the enterprise part of PEMM for assessment and planning similar to how they use the process part.
The two parts of PEMM are summarized in two matrices; a link to these matrices is provided below. A fuller discussion of PEMM can be found in Dr. Hammer’s article The Process Audit, published in the April 2007 issue of the Harvard Business Review. PEMM is also explored in detail in the classes of our Process Mastery curriculum, which provide the techniques and tools organizations needs to advance themselves along both process and enterprise maturity.
LOG IN TO VIEW PEMM MATRICES
