Baselines and models, which characterize the expected process performance of the organization’s set of standard processes, are established and maintained.

Prior to establishing process performance baselines and models, it is necessary to determine the quality and process performance objectives for those processes (the Establish Quality and Process Performance Objectives specific practice), which processes are suitable to be measured (the Select Processes specific practice), and which measures are useful for determining process performance (the Establish Process Performance Measures specific practice).

The first three practices of this goal are interrelated and often need to be performed concurrently and iteratively to select quality and process performance objectives, processes, and measures. Often, the selection of one quality and process performance objective, process, or measure will constrain the selection of the others. For example, selecting a quality and process performance objective relating to defects delivered to the customer will almost certainly require selecting the verification processes and defect related measures.

The intent of this goal is to provide projects with the process performance baselines and models they need to perform quantitative project management. Many times these baselines and models are collected or created by the organization, but there are circumstances in which a project may need to create the baselines and models for themselves. These circumstances include projects that are not covered by the organization’s baselines and models. For these cases the project follows the practices in this goal to create its baselines and models.