Summary

Scenarios

Here are two scenarios to consider. Our lawyers tell us that we have to include the following statement: This is a work of the imagination depicting organizations and events that have not happened . Any resemblance to actual companies or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Scenario One: Merged Teams

Background

Roadrunner Software Enterprises is a development organization with products that contain both custom hardware and software. They produce mainly embedded software for their primary products and some automatic test equipment software to test the final product. They do a lot of what they consider to be systems engineering, including the analysis of customer requirements, total systems design, and verification/validation activities throughout the development and installation life cycle. They have a large purchasing group that covers everything from buying paper clips to buying aircrafts to use as test platforms.

Existing teams

They have been doing process improvement with the software CMM for over 10 years, and they have a classic Software Engineering Process Group (SEPG) sponsored by the Director of Embedded Software. They have an ISO program in place for the hardware manufacturing activities that is part of their standard quality process that has been going on for five years managed by the Vice President of Quality. They began a systems engineering process improvement activity two years ago using the Systems Engineering Capability Model (EIA/IS 731), and they have an Engineering Process Improvement Group (EPIG) that is sponsored by the Director of Engineering. The Chairman of the EPIG is a member of the SEPG and the Chairman of the SEPG is a member of the EPIG. Training comes from two sources ” a Software Training Group and an organizational-level training function within the Human Resource Department.

Approach

They have defined their organizational scope for the CMMI initiative to include all of engineering (systems, software, mechanical, electrical, and avionics ), training department, quality assurance, and purchasing. As part of the new initiative, they have merged the SEPG and EPIG into a new group called the Engineering Process Group (EPG) and expanded their charter to cover all of engineering and purchasing plus related quality assurance functions. They have assigned sponsorship of the EPG to the newly identified Vice President of Technology. They have renamed the Software Training Group to the Engineering Training Group (ETG) and given them responsibility for training unique to engineering and purchasing. They decided to leave the ISO program as is but have assigned the senior in-house ISO auditor as a full-time member of the EPG.

Rationale

The rationale for the merged team approach is that:

• They found that they had many of the same members and stakeholders in the SEPG and EPIG.

• They have very similar processes and procedures for systems and software in requirements, design, integration, verification, and validation with some understandable differences in specialty engineering.

• The newly assigned VP of Technology sees this merged EPG and ETG as a way to improve communications between systems, software, and purchasing, and is looking for a way to reduce rework .

Scenario Two: Separate but Equal

Background

Wily Coyote Industries, a division of Kannotgetabrake, Inc., is an organization that produces major systems containing both custom hardware/software and significant amounts of purchased hardware/software. They produce a variety of custom software including embedded, information systems, and command/control applications. They do a lot of what they consider to be systems engineering, including the analysis of systems requirements, specification writing for components and subsystems, verification and validation activities, and product integration. A group at corporate headquarters, over 900 miles away, performs most purchasing activities.

Existing Teams

They have been doing software engineering process improvement with the CMM for Software for six years and have recently been assessed at Level 4 against that model. They have a classic SEPG sponsored by the Director of Engineering. The SEPG is responsible for all software processes, procedures, and training. They started a systems engineering process improvement initiative four years ago and formed a Process Improvement Group (PIG) sponsored by the Senior Engineering Scientist. The PIG is responsible for systems process and procedures. The corporate training department covers systems engineering training activities. There is very little formal interaction between the SEPG and the PIG, but a lot of competition. Each group has its own logo, t-shirts, and coffee cups.

Approach

They have defined their organizational scope for the CMMI initiative to include systems engineering and software engineering. They have left the SEPG and PIG separate but have assigned a member of the SEPG to attend all PIG meetings and a member of PIG to attend all SEPG meetings. They have moved the responsibility for software training to the Corporate Training Department and have transferred the old software training group to corporate.

Rationale

The rationale for the separate teams is that:

• The SEPG is planning a Level 5 assessment against the CMM for Software next year and sees this as priority over the CMMI initiative.

• The competition between the groups was determined to be healthy by executive management.

• The processes and procedures for software are quite varied, with very different approaches in each domain (embedded, information systems, and command/control applications).

• The processes and procedures for systems engineering are very formal and unique to the major client.

• The move toward a total corporate training approach supports a corporate goal of leveraging training across divisions.