Seven Ways of Process Improvement, Risto Nevalainen 1 Seven ways of SPI Risto Nevalainen, STTF Oy

Seven Ways of Process Improvement, Risto Nevalainen 2 Continuous Process Improvement (CPI) Input ? Output

Seven Ways of Process Improvement, Risto Nevalainen 3 Lessons learned from SPI in the past (SPIRE) activities should meet business needs investment has to be focused in areas with high ROI strong correlation between practice & performance essential to have management commitment results do not happen overnight results cannot always be quantified an incremental approach works best training is a key factor in the cultural shift necessary for success

Seven Ways of Process Improvement, Risto Nevalainen 4 Seven ways to improve (software) processes Competencies, skills, teams, motivation (peopleware, orgware) Process definition and modeling Process assessment and profiling Process automation and technology support Best practices adoption Measurement and analysis Innovation, benchmarking

Seven Ways of Process Improvement, Risto Nevalainen 5 1. Skills and competencies Focus first in technical competencies, otherwise you have nothing to improve…. Typical development topics: –Competence evaluations, skill cards, skill classifications, role descriptions Examples of improvements: –Role descriptions –Delegation of responsibilities –Virtual networks of technical experts

Seven Ways of Process Improvement, Risto Nevalainen 6 2. Process definition and modeling Define something quite early, improve later. Start from PM and SwE technical processes. Typical development topics: –Process Map, Core process descriptions, Minimum requirements for processes Examples of improvements: –Company level Standard Process Library –Intranet, templates for work products –Tailoring/scalability guidance

Seven Ways of Process Improvement, Risto Nevalainen 7 Process Map, example 1 Customer relationship process Product Delivery process Product Maintenance process Operation support process Consulting process Quality Management Security management ITC management Business management Human resource management Administration Finance Support processes

Seven Ways of Process Improvement, Risto Nevalainen 8 Process map, example 2

Seven Ways of Process Improvement, Risto Nevalainen 9 Roles and responsibilies, example

Seven Ways of Process Improvement, Risto Nevalainen Process assessment and profiling When you have something done, understand how well it is in use and what is really needed Typical development topics: –How processes are deployed and how motivate people in SPI, how internal audits and QA work Examples of improvements:: –Overview assessments first –Focused assessments later –Something all the time, not Big Bang

Seven Ways of Process Improvement, Risto Nevalainen Process technology support Organisation and management > Methods > Tools and technologies. But not always. Typical development topics: –Organisation level technology support, lisence management, well-managed upgrades Examples of improvements:: –from project level to company level CM –Test tools: management, records, special testing strategies, automation

Seven Ways of Process Improvement, Risto Nevalainen Best Practice Adoption Best practice is always your own definition of it! Some say that they have only good practices…. Typical development topics: –Best internal practices, learning from customers, learning from networks Examples of improvements: –Experience sharing –Project manager meetings to communicate typical problems and improvement ideas –Joint reviews with customers

Seven Ways of Process Improvement, Risto Nevalainen Measurement and analysis When all easy things are done, you need measurement and analysis to improve further Typical development topics: –Core metrics, business metrics, project metrics, contract-based metrics Examples of improvements: –Balanced Scorecard for strategy deployment –Product metrics (defect and test data etc) –Process metrics (resources, performance)

Seven Ways of Process Improvement, Risto Nevalainen Innovation and Benchmarking Finally, you can question all and do differently and even better than before Typical development topics: –Radical vs. Continuous improvement, Extreme SPI, Agile processes etc. Examples of improvements: –Process model for product business vs. customer specific work –Top level partnerships