Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
How Should an Organization Select Subprocesses for Statistical
Control?
I have found in many large organizations that the subprocesses selected for
statistical control are often
isolated to single departments
such as software engi-
neering. Subprocess selection should meet at a minimum the following
criteria:
• Being “critical” to the business
• Having “experienced problems in the past”
My experience indicates that most often subprocesses that best meet these
criteria are not isolated to individual departments, but rather
cross multiple
department boundaries
as we saw in the case study involving the hardware
procurement difficulty.
This is because often in the past, problems occur where communication
breakdown is most likely, and this tends to happen more often when the
process crosses multiple organizational entities (including teams) or func-
tional/technical competencies.
It is for this reason I recommend that organizations consider selecting sub-
processes for statistical management that are not isolated to single
departments.
When using
Agile
techniques we partition work into
shorter increments—
often called
iterations, time-boxes, or sprints
—where the work completed in
each increment involves complete
slices
through multiple traditional devel-
opment phases. This implies the involvement of multiple organizational
entities (including teams) or functional/technical competencies. Incremental
development supports more effectively than traditional Waterfall develop-
ment the monitoring of the most valuable subprocesses for statistical control
over short periods of time leading to real payback.
LESSON 6
To g a i n t h e m o s t v a l u e w h e n s e l e c t i n g s u b p r o c e s s e s fo r s t a t i s t i c a l c o n t r o l ,
consider subprocesses that cross multiple organizational boundaries
(including teams), or functional/technical competencies, and are used on
projects with incremental development.
