Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
communication occurred at NANO. They had a strong customer-focused
top-level requirements process. When a new project kicked off, they held
meetings with the customer and agreed on requirements, which were
flowed down to the engineering group. Any changes to those requirements
had to be approved by the Director.
To s u p p o r t r a p i d c u s t o m e r re s p o n s e , re q u i re m e n t s c h a n g e a p p ro v a l s o f t e n
occurred verbally with the Director communicating those changes directly to
his immediate staff. They in turn communicated the approvals down the chain
within the organization. When the organization was small this direct
human-
to-human
communication mechanism worked well, but as the organization
grew and changes to requirements began to occur more frequently, miscom-
munication became more prevalent. From the gap analysis interviews, I began
to understand what was happening. I heard comments such as:
Because there is a lot of informal communication we often talk past each
other,
and
Often the requirements changes become what we think we heard and some-
times it turns out what we think we heard was wrong.
6.6 Complicating Factors at NANO
My immediate thought was that the organization needed a more clearly
defined requirements change and approval process. Not all of those I inter-
viewed expressed agreement. Some, in fact, defended the way the
organization operated and told me that a major reason this organization was
still successful and growing was due to the rapid response they demon-
strated with respect to customer changes. They also felt that if that process
began to bog down with more time-consuming bureaucratic approvals, the
future of their organization would be placed at risk by the cut-throat politics
within the larger organization.
6.7 Preparing for the Gap Analysis at NANO
I had spoken with NANO about getting a CMMI effort going over a year
before they finally called me to actually conduct the gap analysis early in
