From Specification to Implementation (III)

Continuing with related post (From Specification to Implementation) I will described the last processes implementation in a public organization supported with RedMine.

The final photo (today, forward work will be done) consist on:

A set of processes:

• Project Planning (CMMI)
• Project Monitoring and Control (CMMI)
• Requirements Development (CMMI)
• Requirements Management (CMMI)
• Release Management (ISO 20.000)
• Defect Management 

A group of roles (RedMine roles):

• Sponsor
• Expert User
• Functional Director
• Project Manager
• Project Team 
• System Manager
• System Team

And several management elements (RedMine trackers):

• New Initiative
• Goal
• Project Plan
• Requirement
• Requirement Change
• Sprint
• Release
• Version
• Defect
• Request for Change (development)

With these three group of elements the new methodology is ready to be used. The relationship between then is described in the following picture:

Further related documentation have been generated: templates, reports, user manual, change management... and everything is supported with wiki and document functionality.

From Specification to Implementation (II)

Starting from previous post, several approach could be done to get a process implementation in any organization.

From our experience, the process implementation consist on the following main steps:

• Initial Situation: this set of task consists of several techniques and work focus on identifying organization needs, how the organization is working, strengths and vulnerabilities.
• This work generates a document that identifies such things and propose a improvement process divided in three scenarios.
• Process Implantation: once the goal of the first implantation has been defined, the work will be lead by defining working group for each process, in order to identify in detail how tasks activities are being delived nowadays, and how could be unified, attended and systematized to reach users needs and organization goals

Process Implantation finish when the organization has several process implanted with:

• Entries
• Outputs
• Tasks
• Roles
• Reports
• Metrics
• A tool or a set of tools that support it
• Training sessions - Change management
• Initial support

From my point of view the supporting tool is the key to organize any process, and it will allow:

• Monitorization
• Measurement
• Regulation
• Support
• Collaboration

Any ticketing tool will help to fit your needs, we have used RedMine as project management tool and we have good experiences with it.

From specification to implementation

Processes specification is a hard work that many times finish with a theoretical approach, high amounts of money spent and low or null use in the organization.

Main reasons for these situations are:

• Processes goals is aligned to organization goals but they are not supported by end users, main affected of the new way of work that implies a new methodology.
• Methodologies approach are so wide and nonspecific, they could not be implemented by default, but need a customization for each organization.

For me the reasons why a methodology does not fit in a organization is due to:

• People who has to work with it are not involve in processes specification.
• Processes definition is supported as documents, but not implemented in any tool.
• Managed elements defined by the methodology are not valuable, they only suppose more work, but not simplified work and reporting.

In order to avoid these situations and minimize methodology pitfalls I recommend you to start this work with the following partners:

• A short list of goals: few processes in a organization with a list of identifying problems and a set of metrics that evidence how to improve.
• A short list of users: process owner and end user process. They have to be able to define their requirements and validate your work.
• A corporate tool to implement, document and support the processes. This tool will be the base of any organization work.

Continual Improvent Process

The continual improvement process is almost the most important concept that every methodology must define, and that should be always implement in any organization.

If we take a look at most significant methodologies, we can see this process area definition:

• ITIIL V3
• CMMI - Dev - 1.3
• TMMI

Continual Improvement Processes aimed to be used not in an initial application of any of these methodologies, but in a later step, and this causes several miss-performance situations in organizations:

• Organizations that are making an effort in methodology improvement don't have a continuous improvement process included on their process map.
• After implementation of the methodology in the organization there are no metrics to determine if performance is increasing or not.
• Basic diagnostic is not determine: is the methodology in my organization being used?

To avoid those situations any implementation of any methodology must define a set of processes, with almost the following matters:

• A set of processes not in paper, but with a computer based solution that support then.
• A set of basic metrics that measure how are  being used processes.
• A set of performance indicators to determine if throughput is increasing or not.
• A set of reports that inform the methodology leader how everything is going on.
• the organization must know how to inform or propose improvement  to methodology.