THE MODEL AND THE REALITY

Both SW-CMM and CMMI provide either explicit or implicit guidance for establishing roles and responsibilities in the organization. In SW-CMM, there are Ability to Perform key practices that address establishing certain functions to perform processes and activities such as project management, change control, quality assurance, and training. In CMMI, there are no explicit practices that come right out and say, define your roles and responsibilities, but there are several GPs that heavily depend on some level of established roles. GP 2.3 requires that resources be provided for performing the process, developing the work products, etc. A resource doesn t have to be a person or people in the abstract world of CMMI, but resources are almost always people in the world in which we work. GP 2.4 comes as close as a model should to being explicit about roles and responsibilities. Its subpractices address assigning responsibility and authority for performing tasks and processes. However, it doesn t tell you how to go about doing this, nor should it. GP 2.7, which addresses the identification and involvement of relevant stakeholders, is my all-time favorite GP. This practice is difficult to implement, yet such a powerful improvement when implemented well. But there s a catch, implementing this GP will be all but impossible for an organization to get its brains and arms around unless roles and responsibilities are defined and being practiced. People simply don t grasp the idea of being a stakeholder unless they perceive that their roles and responsibilities somehow align with the work for which someone has identified them as stakeholders.

Say you re an analyst and your main job, as you know it, is to perform system tests. A project manager comes to you and tells you that he d like you to participate in peer reviews because you re a stakeholder. But if you re really busy and under a deadline to finish some testing and someone schedules you to participate in a peer review, which activity is going to get flushed? That s right, the peer review. Why? Because as far as you re concerned , you get evaluated and compensated for doing testing, not for doing peer reviews. However, if your defined roles and responsibilities required you to participate in peer reviews and if you knew that at least a part of your compensation, performance evaluation, or promotion was based on peer review participation, you might make a different choice in the previously described situation. Even if you still make the same choice and blow off the peer review, at least you know the cost of your decision.

The authors of CMMI did the right thing; they did not prescribe to organizations how they should be structured in terms of departments, functions, roles, positions , or responsibilities. CMMI (or any other intelligent reference) cannot do this for you because every organization had different strategies, goals, and business needs and it is those things that should influence the organization s structure. This chapter also does not prescribe a particular definition of roles and responsibilities; it simply provides information on the importance of role definition and how an organization can accomplish this important task.