A senior executive works with his or her staff to:
Establish the organization’s business goals for the assessment.
Choose a reference model and an assessment methodology to guide the assessment.
Select a Lead Assessor (or Lead Appraiser).
Select (advised by the Lead Assessor) an "assessment sponsor" (or personally serve as the "assessment sponsor").
Define (advised by the Lead Assessor) the assessment’s organizational scope (that is, the part of the company that is to be the official "organization being assessed").
Ensure that the organization shares a common understanding of what the assessment is meant to accomplish.
The executive should stress that improving software development capability is the responsibility not just of engineers and project managers but of the entire organization.
Each person in the organization should be encouraged to accept that the structure that holds everyone together needs to be examined and improved.