Terminology


This book uses the language that has become a part of the process improvement community. This community has grown up around the family of CMMs. It includes process practitioners , process improvement specialists, evaluators , assessors, appraisers, project managers, and executives who have invested significant effort to implement, evaluate, and improve processes in a wide variety of domains. Unfortunately, not all the sources that make up the overall process improvement body of knowledge are consistent in their use of terms. For that reason, we define a number of terms throughout this book. In some cases, these definitions will come from a specific reference and we will note that reference in the text. In other cases, we will just give you our definition.

People first coming to model-based process improvement can misunderstand the term "model." These models are not intended to be architectural-type plans for your organization's processes. You do not just follow these steps and obtain a good process. Models are more a yardstick or guideline to determine what might be missing from your processes.

The term "organization" is used in a general sense throughout the book to mean the group that the process improvement initiative covers. In some cases, an organization is an entire company; in some cases, a division or department within a company; and in some cases, the group responsible for developing a specific product.

One more thing "Data" are plural. Although most folks generally say, "the data is not yet available," proper grammar is to say, "the data are not yet available." So it may sound a little funny when you read it.




Interpreting the CMMI(c) A Process Improvement Approach
Interpreting the CMMI (R): A Process Improvement Approach, Second Edition
ISBN: 142006052X
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2005
Pages: 205

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