Level 5 - Optimized
It is characteristic of processes at this level that the 
focus is on continually improving process performance 
through both incremental and innovative technological 
changes/improvements.

Organisational implications:
(a) Quantitative process-improvement objectives for the 
organization are established, continually revised to 
reflect changing business objectives, and used as criteria 
in managing process improvement. Thus, process improvements 
to address common causes of process variation and 
measurably improve the organization’s processes are 
identified, evaluated, and deployed.
(b) The effects of deployed process improvements are 
measured and evaluated against the quantitative process-
improvement objectives.
(c) Both the defined processes and the organization’s set 
of standard processes are targets for measurable 
improvement activities.
(d) A critical distinction between maturity level 4 and 
maturity level 5 is the type of process variation addressed.
At maturity level 4, processes are concerned with 
addressing statistical special causes of process variation 
and providing statistical predictability of the results, 
and though processes may produce predictable results, the 
results may be insufficient to achieve the established 
objectives.
At maturity level 5, processes are concerned with 
addressing statistical common causes of process variation 
and changing the process (for example, shifting the mean of 
the process performance) to improve process performance. 
This would be done at the same time as maintaining the 
likelihood of achieving the established quantitative 
process-improvement objectives.