Introduction to NonStop Operations Management

Operations Management and Continuous
Improvement
Introduction to NonStop Operations Management–125507
13-4
Using the Maturity Framework
Table 13-1 summarizes each of the five levels in the maturity framework.
Table 13-1. The Maturity Framework (page 1 of 2)
Maturity
Level Characteristics
Level 1 The operations environment is driven from crisis to crisis by unplanned priorities
and unmanaged change.
Operators perform tasks in an ad-hoc fashion.
Tools are not well integrated with the process, and operators use the tools
informally to solve problems.
No procedures are defined or documented.
The same problems keep repeating.
Change control is nonexistent; schedules are arbitrary.
Senior management has little understanding of the problems and issues.
Level 2 The staff has some experience with the management and control of the tools and
technology.
Operators have developed rules of thumb to solve simple problems.
Some routine tasks are documented in runbooks.
Because operators can perform some routine tasks consistently, they are freed to
solve more complex problems.
Level 3 Operations processes are defined, and the staff has learned how to manage them.
The staff can now examine its processes and tools in depth and decide how to
improve them.
Processes are defined and formally documented.
When the operations staff is faced with a crisis, it continues to use the procedures
that have been defined.
Because the staff now understands how problems occur and how to recover from
them, it can safely introduce automated operations software to perform problem
management.
Level 4 The staff measures the efficiency of its operations management processes to test
how well it is meeting its service-level objectives.
Comprehensive process measurements and analysis techniques are used. This is
the level at which the most significant quality improvements begin.
The staff analyzes the way it handles and solves problems. If there are
deficiencies in the current procedures, the staff improves them. For example, the
staff might examine the efficiency of automation and determine how to improve
it to better meet its service-level objective for availability.