Chapter 20: Closing Thoughts


Transitioning to Level 5

The people we work with do not have as much of a problem with the concepts at Level 5 as we have seen with Level 4. However, there are a few points that need to be made with each of the process areas; that is, Organizational Innovation and Deployment (OID) and Causal Analysis and Resolution (CAR).

The OID process area contains a reasonable set of steps for a Level 5 process improvement function in the following seven specific practices as written:

SP1.1:

Collect and analyze process- and technology-improvement proposals.

SP1.2:

Identify and analyze innovative improvements that could increase the organization's quality and process performance.

SP1.3:

Pilot process and technology improvements to select which ones to implement.

SP1.4:

Select process- and technology-improvement proposals for deployment across the organization.

SP2.1:

Establish and maintain the plans for deploying the selected process and technology improvements.

SP2.2:

Manage the deployment of the selected process and technology improvements.

SP2.3:

Measure the effects of the deployed process and technology improvements.

  • A key to the OID process area that does not come out at the specific practice (SP) level is the assumption that the organization's processes are quantitatively managed. This is a key assumption because stable processes and quantitative data are the basis for several of the practices.

Here are some steps that we recommend for implementing OID in your organization.

Create an Organizational Group Responsible for the Collection of Improvement Suggestions for Both Process and Technology

It is critical to the success of OID that you collect improvement proposals from across the organization and that these proposals are handled in a professional way. Establishing a group responsible for reviewing improvement proposals is not an explicit CMMI requirement (the CMMI's OID introductory notes refer to an infrastructure ” not a group), but a responsible group is the only way we have seen OID work. People need feedback on their proposals. We go into a lot of organizations where the staff has given up making suggestions because "nobody listens anyway." You also need to make sure the group is not dysfunctional . We worked with one organization in which the primary author of the organization's standard process chaired the committee to review improvement suggestions. He saw all suggestions as a personal attack. The year after he was replaced as committee chair , the organization documented savings of more than $700,000 from implementing process improvement proposals.

Establish a Well-Defined Process for Improvement Proposals

The process or procedures for improvement proposals need to include details on the improvement proposal content, the routing, the analysis, the reviewing, the initial approval of proposals, the feedback, the piloting methods, measurement methods , the review of piloting results, and final approval to roll-out to the organization. The process or procedure should document the formats, the steps, and the authority. It should also identify the metrics to collect on the proposals, for example, number of proposals, how many from each group, time to respond, the number by status, etc. In addition, clear responsibility for independent process reviews and audits needs to be established to ensure that the process is followed.

The analysis of improvement suggestions needs to be based on the data collected as part of the Level 4 activities. Use your PPBs and PPMs to calculate the return on investment of the improvement proposals. To answer your question: no, we do not believe you can do real OID before you do Level 4.

Be sure to estimate a return on investment before running any pilot of the improvement. Update these estimates as the understanding of the improvement increases . Record historical data on all estimates. The pilot procedures and plans need to include evaluation techniques, for example, walkthroughs, prototypes , and human simulations, along with documented methods for measuring savings.

Establish Process Improvement Goals

Your organization should have improvement goals and manage to them. The organization needs to consider establishing three types of strategic process improvement goals:

  1. Incremental improvements

  2. Innovative improvement

  3. Targeted improvements

Incremental improvements are stepwise improvements accomplished by making the current processes and tools a little better. A source of incremental improvement opportunities can be found by analyzing the organization's common defects from reviews and testing and other common causes of variation. The approach described in the Causal Analysis and Resolution process area works well for finding these kinds of improvements. These improvements are often the responsibility of the Process Improvement Group or a special team chartered to find incremental improvements.

Innovative improvements are major leaps in performance accomplished by bringing into the organization a significantly different process or technology. A good place to look for this type of improvement is from an external organization or specialists. These improvements are often the responsibility of a Process Action Team chartered to address a particular area or problem.

Targeted improvements are specific areas that have been identified as problematic . Senior management can establish an area of improvement as an organizational goal. For example, an organizational goal might be to reduce delivered defects by 20 percent. These goals are used to solicit improvement suggestions from across the organization.

The goal derivation, refinement, planning, and retirement process needs to be defined and understood by everyone involved in these activities. Be sure everyone participating is trained in goal derivation and process improvement, including senior management. Consider establishing a process action team(s) to create the process and create a draft set of goals. Use caution in defining the goals so that they do not belittle individuals or disciplines.

Clearly Communicate Process Improvement Activities and Goals to the Staff

Senior management is responsible for clear and positive communication to the staff of the goals, why the goals are important, and their personal commitment to improvement. This can be a very positive activity for the organization, but only when senior management takes the lead and describes the positive reasons for improving the process and technology.

Goals need to be considered part of the project commitment process. Imposing annual organizational goals on ongoing, preexisting projects is a change in requirements that needs to be managed as any other requirements change. Do not let your organization revert to Level 1 behavior by imposing uncommitted requirements on projects.

Remember to communicate "seven times and three ways." The three ways might be the company Web page or newsletter, staff meetings, and "all hands" meetings. We worked with one organization where the goal definition activity was not clearly communicated to the staff, and the rumor mill had decided that senior management was meeting with the project managers and technical leads to plan a massive layoff . The morale was turned around only after the Chief Technical Officer called a special engineering-wide meeting to communicate what was really going on.

The other process area described in Maturity Level 5 is Causal Analysis and Resolution (CAR). This process area is a high-level description of identifying causes of defects and other problems and taking action to prevent them from occurring. The steps identified in the five specific practices are:

SP1.1:

Select the defects and other problems for analysis.

SP1.2:

Perform causal analysis of selected defects and other problems and propose actions to address them.

SP2.1:

Implement the selected action proposals that were developed in causal analysis.

SP2.2:

Evaluate the effect of changes on process performance.

SP2.3:

Record causal analysis and resolution data for use across the project and organization.

As discussed in Chapter 8, "Understanding Maturity Level 5," you can be doing these CAR activities much sooner than Level 5. However, from a high-maturity perspective, these activities become mandatory for a useful Level 5 implementation and very desirable for a successful Level 4.

When transitioning to Level 4, use the steps described as part of CAR to investigate special causes of variation for their root cause. As previously stated, it is best to get project team members involved with this analysis because the recorded data are likely to be incomplete. Put corrective actions in place across the organization to address the root causes, as appropriate.

At Level 5, use the steps in CAR when looking for incremental improvements. These steps can be the basis to investigate common causes of variation in your standard processes and technology usage, and to establish a plan to remove some of the undesirable common causes.

If you are looking for statistical techniques to use with CAR, consider the run sheet, Pareto chart, and cause and effect diagram from Chapter 18, "Statistical Process Control."




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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