Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
“Establish and maintain a description of the defined process,” where
“defined” means:
Ta i l o r e d f r o m t h e o r g a n i z a t i o n 's s e t o f s t a n d a r d p r o c e s s e s a c c o r d i n g t o t h e
organization's tailoring guidelines.
The balancing act is explained in a “tip” in the CMMI guidelines topic [1]
under the
Organizational Process Definition (OPD) Process Area, Specific Practice
(SP) 1.3, Establish Tailoring Criteria and Guidelines
.
The tip states that the challenge of tailoring is:
To p r o v i d e g u i d a n c e t h a t h a s s u f f i c i e n t f l e x i b i l i t y t o m e e t t h e u n i q u e n e e d s o f
each project but at the same time ensure meaningful consistency.
Unfortunately, the tendency I have seen in a number of high maturity organi-
zations has been to downplay the “unique needs of each project” and
up-play
“
consistency” to the point where I have witnessed the addition of
unnecessary effort in the name of “consistency
.
”
If we go back to that example project where the lead appraiser didn't like the
project-unique estimation evidence, it turns out that by considering project-
unique information (i.e., work that already had been done on that project,
and knowledge key people on the project already had) that project was able
to develop a lower bid to do the work than the company standard approach
would have led to.
LESSON 2
Consistency often turns out to be the easiest thing to do, but it can also be
the most expensive thing to do in specific situations.
How can you gain real efficiencies when using the CMMI model? The
answer is through the
tailoring process
and the use of
criteria
, which are left up
to each organization to define
4
In this particular case, a “small tailoring” of the company standard estimation
process—or the use of a set of
criteria—
allows you to make an effective
deci-
sion
considering appropriate factors, such as taking into consideration the
project-specific knowledge that could help gain cost and schedule efficiencies.
4. The answer can also be to adjust what you select to standardize to include additional factors important
more generally to a class of projects. A benefit of this approach is that other projects then directly benefit
from what was previously learned, and the standard process evolves to better reflect the appropriate set
of “minimums” without unnecessarily sacrificing deeper understanding.
