Essence is a new Object Management Group (OMG) software standard [1, 2, 3] developed specifically for software development practitioners and teams. This article explains specific features of Essence that could help software teams improve performance in ways previous frameworks, including the CMMI®, Lean Six Sigma, and Scrum, have fallen short. The article also provides insight into why many performance improvement efforts fail, and how Essence- or a framework with characteristics similar to Essence- could provide the help organizations need to hit performance targets more consistently.