One of the more important steps in starting a process improvement initiative is to determine the appropriate tasking and the scope of the process improvement program.  There is great temptation for an organization to attempt to take on too much too fast, especially if it feels that it must catch up to its competition.  For example, an organization will assess its capability against all of the Process Areas (PAs) of the CMMI and try to set up Working Groups and Action Plans in a broadly based approach to implement multiple levels of PAs at the same time.  While it is natural to want to initiate a program quickly, it is important for an organization trying to get a process improvement initiative started to be as realistic as possible in these beginning stages.  It might not be appropriate for an organization to conduct an assessment right away, yet another organization might want to focus on only a few areas to get its process improvement initiative started, show positive results and then expand.   This paper will identify critical factors to consider and discuss process improvement entry strategies that the authors have helped their clients to achieve over the past decade.