IMPLEMENTING A PROCESS IS A PROJECT

IMPLEMENTING A PROCESS IS A PROJECT

Implementing a software development process is a complex task that should be controlled carefully . We recommend treating it as a project (external to or a subproject of your software development project) and setting up milestones, allocating resources, and managing it as you would for any project.

The process implementation project is divided into a number of phases. All six steps are performed in each phase until the project is ready and the process and tools are deployed and successfully used by the entire organization (see Figure 17-5). Table 17-1 summarizes how a project can be planned with four phases.

Figure 17-5. A process implementation project divided into phases

Table  17-1. The Four Phases of a Process Implementation Project

Phase	Purpose	Important Results after the Phase
1	To "sell" the process implementation project to thesponsors	Go/no go decision from the sponsors. To support the decision, the tools may be demonstrated and a development case may be exemplified.
2	To handle the major risks	Some tools ready to use; critical parts of development case ready.
3	To complete everything	All tools are ready, the development case is complete, a training curriculum is ready; mentors are ready to support real projects in next phase.
4	To deploy it to the entire organization	Process and tools are deployed to the entire organization.

The group of people working on implementing the process should be dedicated to this task. They should function as mentors in the software development project, applying the process and tools. It is also their responsibility to maintain the new process, and that includes incorporating improvements suggested by the users. Also, to make sure that the process gains credibility within the organization, this group must make clear to the rest of the organization the impact of the new process on productivity and product quality. In large organizations, you may have a process engineering team (such as the Software Engineering Process Group , SEPG) that configures and maintains the process, as well as tool specialists who adapt and maintain the supporting tools (see Figure 17-6).

Figure 17-6. Process engineers and tool specialists