Showing posts with label ML 3. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ML 3. Show all posts

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Query on CMMI for Development v1.3

Our organization was appraised at CMMI ML3 in Oct, 2009 and we'll be going for ML5 in Q1 2011. Although we have been preparing ourselves for CMMI for Development v1.2, we are also aware that the CMMI for Development v1.3 will be out in January, 2011. We wish to get appraised for CMMI for Development v1.3. I have gone through some of the PPTs and PDFs on web but none of them give a clear insight into the changed expectations from the existing PAs or expectations from new PAs to be added.
It'll be a great help if anyone can provide me the draft version of v1.3 or any detailed document about the same.

One item that you may not be aware of is that the SEI would like to see at least 18 months between an ML 3 appraisal and a High Maturity appraisal. If you are planning for an appraisal in Q1 2011, that would be less than 18 months. Therefore you would have a very high probability of your appraisal results being audited by the SEI, which could take a long time before being accepted. I would encourage you to hire a High Maturity Lead Appraiser as soon as possible, if you haven’t already done so, and move your plans for your ML 5 appraisal at least 3 months or more into the future to ensure that you have enough data for performing the High Maturity practices and enough time for institutionalization of HM.

You will have to wait for the v1.3 release in November 2010. The problem with using drafts is that things can change before the release.

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

REQM and RD in the CMMI

Why is REQM Management at Maturity Level 2 and Requirement Development at Maturity Level 3? We develop the requirements first and then manage them in the project.

There reason for the placement is due to the meaning of ML 2 vs. ML 3. ML 2 is all about stabilizing projects and gaining control over project estimates. Once the organization has achieved this, then it can begin to evaluate how to improve the engineering areas.

Since you need to have a baseline upon which to plan a project and the other ML 2 Process Areas, that is why REQM is the first Process Area in ML 2. The intent is to manage the collection of project requirements: good, bad, or indifferent. And use this collection to plan the project, etc. Then when you have achieved ML 2 and move to ML 3, then you can address how to improve the Requirements Elicitation to obtain better requirements.

Please keep in mind that the CMMI is a collection of guidelines and best practices for doing process improvement. The CMMI is not a roadmap for how to do software engineering.

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Implementing CMMI Along With ISO 9001

Suppose a company already has an ISO 9001 certification. Then they decide to achieve an appraisal at level 3. Suppose further that their plan is to add additional process assets according to their gap analysis. But then they discover that certain ISO 9001 work instructions or templates require changes to meet the requirements of CMMI level 3. If these assets are changed, would that necessarily invalidate the ISO 9001 certification? Under what conditions would the certification be invalidated, and what needs to be done under those circumstances? Is there a way to avoid this issue?

Without having any details as to your situation, I find it hard to believe that if you are ISO 9001 certified that the CMMI is causing you to make changes to your quality system that would invalidate your ISO 9001 certification. The ISO 9001 standard and the CMMI-DEV model are compatible. Are you working with an SEI-certified Lead Appraiser/consultant? If not, you may be making some decisions to change processes and process assets that are not necessary.

To properly address your concerns, you should have a Lead Appraiser conduct a gap analysis of your organization to determine what you currently have in place that is compatible with the CMMI and identify those gaps that need to be addressed in order for your organization to achieve Maturity Level 3. And any updates to existing processes and process assets should be compatible with both the ISO standard and the CMMI-DEV.

Friday, March 19, 2010

PPQA After Maturity Level 2

I work in an IT organization that achieved CMMI Maturity Level 2 several years ago (we let the rating lapse) and I was wondering if you had some ideas on the following two questions:

1) What types of activities would PPQA engage in if the org had been Maturity Level 2 (I think they could have pursued Maturity Level 3 and been close)? Please also consider that the company is pursuing other types of improvement methods and models such as lean/6-sigma and ITIL.

2) What strategies should we pursue to show the worth of PPQA? Even in the good old CMM days and SQA one of the issues I had was that it was difficult to show the practical monetary worth of these support functions; one generally had to take it on faith that PPQA/SQA delivered some degree of worth to the company. Any thoughts?

The answer to question 1 is simple. Just read the PPQA Process Area and GP 2.9. The PPQA activities include performing both process and work product audits of the project and organization processes. For Maturity Level 2 that would mean auditing your REQM, PP, PMC, SAM, MA, PPQA, and CM processes.

The answer to question 2 is a bit more difficult. Basically you are asking, what is the cost of quality? One method you can use is to look at the total cost for the project and analyze it using Crosby’s Cost of Quality Model. The total costs break down into two categories: the Cost of Quality and the Cost of Performance.

The Cost of Performance includes such things as: generating plans, documentation, and developing requirements, design, code, and integration.

The Cost of Quality breaks down further into two categories: Cost of Conformance and Cost of Non-Conformance.

The Cost of Non-Conformance includes fixing defects, reworking documents, updating source code, re-reviews, re-tests, patches, engineering changes, CCBs, external failures and fines, Customer Support, and Help Desk.

The Cost of Conformance breaks down to two more categories: Cost of Appraisal and Cost of Prevention.

The Cost of Appraisal includes reviews, walkthroughs, testing (first time), independent V&V, and Audits.

The Cost of Prevention includes training, policies, procedures, tools, planning, quality improvement, data gathering and analysis, root cause analysis, and quality reporting.

The cost of PPQA is included in the Cost of Prevention.

When you consider these definitions and cost break down, the only category that will be affected by PPQA is the Cost of Non-Conformance. When PPQA audits the processes and work products, the audits will reveal non-conformances with people following the documented processes and procedures, which lead to re-work. By addressing these non-conformances, the goal is to reduce or effectively eliminate the rework and that is where you can demonstrate the value of PPQA.

Hope this helps.

Sunday, December 6, 2009

SCAMPI A Appraisal Questions for FAR Groups

Can you share the Questionnaires for a ML 3 SCAMPI A appraisal? Currently my organization is preparing for SCAMPI A and I want to trained the interviewees as this is their first experience an appraisal.

I am looking for some questions based on each Process Area, so the FAR Group Members will be prepared to answer them.

I have searched on Google but not able to find any information. :(


I am not surprised that you have not been able to find what you are looking for on the internet. A Lead Appraiser will not share his or her questions with you. Simply because the Lead Appraiser does not want the interviewees to be trained on what answers to provide, thereby biasing the results of any SCAMPI appraisal. If you and the organization are nervous about the appraisal, don’t be. There is no preparation for the interviews necessary. All that is expected by the Lead Appraiser is that any interviewee should be able to talk about HOW they perform their job duties. If people cannot do that, then the organization is not ready for an appraisal.

If you still feel uneasy, talk to your Lead Appraiser and have him or her conduct a Class B appraisal with interviews. A Class B or SCAMPI B appraisal can function as a dress rehearsal for a SCAMPI A without having the organization and the people worry about “flunking” or “passing” the appraisal. The interviewees will have the experience of being interviewed.

If you still want to perform an internal set of interviews, simply take the CMMI and step through the applicable practices with different groups of people (project managers, configuration managers, developers, testers, etc.) and ask them HOW they perform the Specific and Generic Practices. There is no set of standard questions. Each Lead Appraiser has their own style of questioning interviewees.

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

CMMI Practices for Documentation Teams

Our organization is CMMI Maturity Level 3 Ver 1.2 certified. Our delivery teams are going to implement CMMI practices soon. I did see the processes of the organization and though all the roles appeared from project leader to developer to manager, except for documentation teams. In the same context, I am very curious to see if there are any set of practices to be followed for the documentation department in CMMI as all the processes at CMMI ML2, ML3 are specific to project management, engineering, support, organization areas.


Your question actually raises some other questions:

  1. What are the roles and responsibilities of your documentation teams and documentation department?
  2. If this group of people is responsible for the technical documentation (e.g. requirements, design, etc.) and the user documentation, how and why were they excluded from your ML 3 SCAMPI A?
  3. How are the delivery teams different from the organization that achieved Maturity Level 3?

What is puzzling with your question is that REQM, RD, TS, PI, and CM cover the different aspects of writing and controlling the various documents associated with designing, developing, maintaining, operating, using, and deploying products. And then VER covers the inspection/review of the documents before placing them in the baseline and controlling them with CM.


It does appear from your description that your organization omitted the documentation people as a process role from your process documentation. In my opinion, at a minimum, your PPQA audits should have identified this omission long before your SCAMPI A appraisal. Then your Lead Appraiser should have identified this gap during the appraisal planning process before the SCAMPI A and should have taken steps to address the gap or postponed your appraisal until the documentation group was included in the scope. Since your documentation group was apparently not included in the scope of your appraisal, this oversight also calls into question your Lead Appraiser’s credentials and quite possibly the validity of your SCAMPI A results.


The bottom line, in my opinion, and based on only what you stated, your documentation group should have been included in the scope of your ML 3 SCAMPI A. Even if all they do is Document Configuration Control (which would be covered under CM) or Document Quality Assurance (which would be covered under PPQA).


The answers to my above questions could provide additional information that would change my opinion.

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Rationale for Maturity Level 5

Our organization is currently at Maturity Level 3 and is now planning to go for Maturity Level 5. Our CEO is asking for the short term and long term benefits and challenges for implementing Maturity Level 5. How do we provide this information?

The question that needs to be asked is why does your organization want to achieve Maturity Level 5 (ML 5)? If the organization has already achieved Maturity Level 3 (ML 3), what is the motivation for achieveing ML 5? Most likely it is not mandated in a contract or by its customers. But achieving ML 5 is desirable to be competitive in the marketplace. Therefore, the reasons for achieving ML 5 should provide some indication of the short term and long term benefits.

The first step in becoming a High Maturity organization is defining your Quality and Process Performance Objectives (QPPOs) that are based on your business goals and objectives as well as your customer needs. The QPPOs should be stated in a form such that they specify a timeframe. And that information will provide some ideas of the short term and long term benefits.

However, the best advice that I can provide is to hire an SEI-certified High Maturity Lead Appraiser (HMLA) who will work with you to help explain the benefits of ML 5 to the CEO. The HMLA should have experience working with many different organizations at various Maturity Levels and be able to talk about the different challanges that have been faced by other organizations, as well as the challenges and risks within your organization.

At this point, it sounds like your organization is just beginning its journey to ML 5, so I would have to be convinced that your processes are stable enough to provide the data needed to quantify any short term and long term benefits. I think that the best you could do at this point is communicate this information in qualitative terms. Any quantitative information may not be accurate until you have implemented High Maturity.

Friday, August 7, 2009

Identifying Risks

What is the difference between PP SP 2.2 Identify Project Risk and RSKM SP 2.1 Identify Risks?

What you are asking about is one of the basic differences between Maturity Level 2 (ML 2) and Maturity Level 3 (ML 3). Project Planning (PP) is a ML 2 Process Area (PA) and Risk Management (RSKM) is a ML 3 PA. At ML 2, the project only needs to be able to identify risks and that is what PP Specific Practice (SP) 2.2 addresses. At ML 3, RSKM builds upon the foundation of identifying and tracking risks put in place by PP and Project Monitoring and Control (PMC). RSKM SP 2.1 therefore builds upon PP SP 2.2 by adding more rigor for risk identification. Just read the informative material and sub-practices for both SPs and you will immediately see and understand the difference.

Monday, August 3, 2009

Software Sizing

We are trying to achieve CMMI Maturity Level (ML) 3 in my company and we have decided to skip ML 2. So, now, one of our problems is related to software size estimation. We defined a proprietary method, based on Use Case Points and Function Points, but the practitioners are struggling with it. From your experience, what other methods have you seen or implemented in the companies with this same problem? Or, if a proprietary method was defined, what were the main aspects to take in account?

I would strongly urge you to forget the ML 3 Process Areas until you have mastered ML 2. There is a fundamental difference between how a ML 2 Project Manager approaches Project Planning (PP) and Project Monitoring and Control (PMC) vs. a ML 3 Project Manager. Estimation being one of the differences. Use Case Points and Functions Points are fairly sophisticated concepts and there are challenges with getting consistency in determining what each of these things are. I would recommend that you take a step back from the model and the projects and look at your historical project data. Use the actual effort, costs, etc. from previous projects to estimate a new project. Forget about Use Case Points and Function Points for now. Once you have mastered being able to use historical information to build an empirical estimation model, then it might make sense to add a layer of sophistication by considering Use Case Points or Function Points.

Another recommendation is let the Project Manager create the project estimates and then review them with the practitioners as a sanity check rather than ask the practitioners to create the estimates. Over time as the organization gains experience estimating projects etc., then it makes sense to involve the practitioners up front in the estimation process. You have to learn to crawl first with estimation before you can sprint with the big boys.

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Why SAM is excluded ?

Why is SAM removed from CMMI L3?

Supplier Agreement Management (SAM) is not excluded from the CMMI-DEV or CMMI-SVC. When you say L3, I assume you mean Maturity Level 3 and SAM is definitely NOT excluded from ML 3. If, however, the Lead Appraiser in working with the organization determines that SAM is not applicable to the work performed by the organization, SAM will be considered Not Applicable to the scope of the appraisal. And that could be at any Maturity Level. Please read previous my posts regarding SAM for more information. http://ppqc.blogspot.com/2009/04/excluding-supplier-agreement-management.html and http://ppqc.blogspot.com/2009/07/cmmi-novice-question.html

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Measurement and Analysis vs. Generic Practice 2.8

Would you expect that measures being reported for Generic Practice (GP) 2.8 on all Maturity Level (ML) 2 and ML 3 Process Areas (PAs) would follow the complete Measurement and Analysis (MA) PA? That is these GP 2.8 measures would have written objectives, operational definitions, storage, collection and analysis procedures in line with MA Specific Goal (SG) 1 and SG 2. Or can the PAs be monitored (measured) and controlled without the full breath of the MA PA?

This is a good question. So let’s take a step backwards and look at the CMMI and Generic Practice – PA Relationships. The summary table in the Generic Practice section of the model clearly states that Project Monitoring and Control (PMC) can implement GP 2.8 for all project-related processes. And MA provides general guidance about measuring, analyzing, and recording information that can be used in establishing measures for monitoring actual performance of the process. Please note that this information is GUIDANCE and part of the INFORMATIVE material. Therefore, it is not required that the org use MA for GP 2.8. HOWEVER, from a practical point of view, why would MA be part of the model if there wasn’t a requirement and expectation that it would be implemented? Since it is a ML 2 PA and you are asking about ML 3, as a Lead Appraiser I would expect to see that MA was used for defining, collecting, analyzing, and reporting both the project and process measures. Without implementing MA for the process measures, the org would be receiving little to no benefit from GP 2.8. And as I have seen GP 2.8 implemented, sometimes the process measures are embedded in the project measures that have been defined using MA.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Levying CMMI Requirements on Your Suppliers

I would like to know whether or not an acquirer can specify a CMMI Maturity Level (ML) as a requirement in a call for tenders or invitation to public bidding. What the ML is required? What is the domain ? and for what kind of projects?

The answer is yes. The acquirer can specify any requirements they want the vendors to meet. In my experience, I have seen acquirers specifying that the bidders be either at ML 2 or ML 3. What this means though is that the acquirer has done its homework and appropriately determined the necessary Maturity Level for the vendor to support the acquirer’s business and quality goals and objectives. There should be a good match between the ML of the acquirer and the ML of the vendor, to work well it may be best if both organizations are at the same ML. Otherwise, there can be problems.

As the acquirer, you probably would find benefit from implementing the CMMI for Acquisition (CMMI-ACQ). The CMMI-ACQ provides a lot of guidance for tenders and contracts that meet the acquirer’s needs.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Evaluating the CMMI for Services

I'm currently involved in an evaluation of different types of assessments for the area of IT Service Management (ITSM) and therefore challenging the CMMI for Services 1.2 (CMMI-SVC).

A major problem I see in CMMI-SVC, is the disregarded sufficient differentiation of practices over different maturity levels. Maybe I´m wrong with my opinion and someone can help me fixing this mess.

I´d like to give a background for a better understanding o f what I mean:
  1. In my opinion many (internal) IT service units in mid-size companies don´t have any official agreements (nor contracts) with their business customer to specify service content, service levels or support. Sometimes these things are partly available and if at all, then often are informally and silently accepted.
  2. In such (above) described IT service units you will find quite often an official HelpDesk (mostly official because it´s a specific function within IT) or minimum some guys necessary for service support (like handling service incidents) to keep the business process running.

Now take a look at the CMMI-SVC Process Areas and their associated Maturity Levels. You will find Service Development (SD) at Maturity Level 2 including specific practices:

SP 1.1 Analyze Existing Agreements and Service Data
SP 1.2 Establish the Service Agreement
SP 2.1 Establish the Service Delivery Approach
SP 2.2 Prepare for Service System Operations
SP 2.3 Establish a Request Management System
SP 3.1 Receive and Process Service Requests
SP 3.2 Operate the Service System
SP 3.3 Maintain the Service System

and you will find Incident Resolution and Prevention (IRP) at maturity level 3 including specific practices:

SP 1.1 Establish an Approach to Incident Resolution and Prevention
SP 1.2 Establish an Incident Management System
SP 2.1 Identify and Record Incidents
SP 2.2 Analyze Incident Data
SP 2.3 Apply Workarounds to Selected Incidents
SP 2.4 Address Underlying Causes of Selected Incidents
SP 2.5 Monitor the Status of Incidents to Closure
SP 2.6 Communicate the Status of Incidents
SP 3.1 Analyze Selected Incident Data
SP 3.2 Plan Actions to Address Underlying Causes of Selected Incidents
SP 3.3 Establish Workarounds for Selected Incidents

To come to an end I would expect that it is an essential part of any IT unit to solve service incidents, to fulfill the main goal of the company, and keep the business process working. Therefore I would assign half of the listed IRP practices to Maturity Level 2 and would other way around assign half of the SD practices to Maturity Level 3. The CMMI-SVC therefore seems for me to be not sufficient in differentiating practices over Maturity Levels, and would lead to the conclusion that CMMI-SVC is not useful for Maturity Level determination.

I appreciate any explanation if there is a misunderstandig or if there exists a grain of truth.

Your position is much the same as the kind of statements we heard regarding the engineering practices being at ML 3 in the CMMI-DEV. Just because these practices are at ML 3 does not mean that they are not important and are probably even performed at ML 1. What you have to bear in mind is that the CMMI is a set of process improvement guidelines , as well as the definition and purpose of ML 2 and ML 3. At ML 2, projects establish the foundation for an organization to become an effective service provider by institutionalizing basic project management and service establishment and delivery practices. Basically, ML 2 is about gaining control over the projects and service delivery and that is why there is only one service PA at ML 2. You have to get delivery under control before you can focus improving the other aspects of services like Incident Resolution and Prevention. And at ML 3, service providers use defined processes for managing projects. They embed tenets of project management and services best practices, such as service continuity and incident resolution and prevention, into the standard process set.

Monday, March 9, 2009

Moving to Maturity Level 4

Our company achieved Maturity Level 3 (ML 3) this year. Now we want to go for Maturity Level 4 (ML 4). Would you please give us some suggestions on what we have to do for ML 4?

I can give you a list of items and practices that you need to have in place, but that is not enough. I highly recommend that you and your company hire a High Maturity Lead Appraiser and/or consultant and have them work with you to implement OPP and QPM. I also suggest that you take the SEI’s Understanding CMMI High Maturity Concepts or equivalent. This class will greatly help your understanding of ML 4 and ML 5. You will need to have someone on your staff that has a good understanding of statistics and statistical methods to help you build your Process Performance Baselines (PPBs) and Process Performance Models (PPMs) that support your Quality and Process Performance Objectives (QPPOs). In addition, in order for all this to work, your processes have to be stable so you can perform meaningful statistical analyses. This also means having a repository of historical data from the stable processes. So not only do you need expert help, you also need a sufficient amount of historical data, which could range from months to years in order to achieve ML 4.

Friday, October 3, 2008

What is the cost of a CMMI v1.2 L3 certification?

Our company is interested to go for CMMI v1.2 ML3 certification. Can you answer the following questions:
  1. What are the costs involved (Internal & External)?
  2. Are there any SEI cerfication bodies in India?
First of all let me make one clarification to your query. There is no such thing as a CMMI certification. What an organization receives are the results of a SCAMPI A appraisal that indicate the Maturity Level of the organization on the day the appraisal concludes. The organization is not certified. And there is no such thing as an SEI certification body anywhere in the world. What do exist are authorized SEI partners that are allowed to provide CMMI consulting, training, and appraisal services. Visit this web site http://partner-directory.sei.cmu.edu/ and you will be able to find the SEI-authorized partners in India.

The answers to your questions are highly variable depending on the size and scope of your organization and your geographical location. The best place to obtain realistic estimates is to ask several local SEI-authorized CMMI consulting and appraisal providers for their cost proposals, then you will have a handle on the external costs. Internal costs really cannot be determined until you figure out how much work you have to do in order to implement the CMMI and prepare for an appraisal. Suffice it to say, your internal costs will most likely be greater than your external costs.

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Query on Process Change Management

Processes are meant for Doing things Right, First time, Every time. This is one of the core concepts I have seen people referring to during process formulation exercises. I presume the whole idea behind this is to make an organisation process driven instead of people driven.In my limited experience, (esp. in small to medium size organisations) I have seen new unit/department heads within a short span of time after their recruitment, devise a series of Continuous Improvement Requests (CIRs) and posted it to the EPG, who on most occasions weigh the CIRs against department and compliance goals, and if they don't see any adverse effect due to these changes, they approve it.One of the premise for approving the changes is to promote positive initiatives in the organisation.

Now, my questions are:
  1. Will adopting the practices prescribed by a new department head, which is based on his experiences, affect his subordinates' work( who are the actual practitioners) in an adverse manner?
  2. Will organic growth of existing practices (due to collective experience of the practitioners) be ruined due to implementing new practices?
  3. Will allowing practice changes from new department heads make an organisation fall behind from process to people driven? (even though this may last until the organisation get accustomed to the new practices) And is this permissible, if we consider the organisation's overall development?

First off, the impacts depend upon the organization’s Maturity Level. A Maturity Level 2 organization doesn’t necessarily have standard procedures for all projects to follow, though I have seen many ML 2 organizations take this approach. Therefore at Maturity Level 2 you can have multiple ways of doing the same thing, from project to project and from manager to manager.

When the organization matures to Maturity Level 3, the premise is that the organization has examined the multiple ways of performing a given practice and determined the Best Practice for the organization and then documents these Best Practices as the set of standard processes for the organization. This examination, coordination, and distribution of the standard processes is typically the responsibility of the Process Group. The Process Group manages the processes and is responsible for coordinating all process changes.

Now having said this, a new department head can make any process changes he or she wants to make. At ML 2 these changes could provide a Best Practice for consideration or additional information on things not to do. However, at ML 3 the organization should have established OPF and OPD processes for making process changes. The new department head would have to follow these change processes to propose his new processes. The Process Group would evaluate his proposals and pilot them as appropriate so the changes could be evaluated in a controlled manner. The outcome of the pilot(s) would determine whether or not the changes are made.

By following these steps, there shouldn’t be any of the problems you allude to in your note. However, if your organization does not have processes in place for making changes to the organization’s processes or the new department head mandates process changes without following the process, then you do have some serious issues to address.

  1. Making uncontrolled process changes will impact the practitioners, most likely adversely. People most likely will be frustrated because of the changes.
  2. Replacing existing procedures with new ones in an uncontrolled manner will adversely disrupt any process improvements and process evolution you have already made.
  3. Making uncontrolled process changes can cause the organization to regress in Maturity Levels, probably drop from whatever ML you are currently at to ML 1.

Monday, August 25, 2008

Full Time Resources for Implementing the CMMI

I have been asked to estimate the number of full time resources required by my company to facilitate its drive to Maturity Level 3 PM, SYS, SW, HW and ACQ. Is there any documentation or published information that will help in putting together a robust estimate of resources required?

First and foremost the driving factor for estimating the number of full time resources needed to implement the CMMI is the size of the organization. Over time we have seen that it takes 3 – 5% of the organization to perform PPQA, 3- 5 % of the organization to perform CM, and 3 – 5% of the organization to perform the necessary CMMI implementation activities.


So, if your organization is about 20 – 30 people, then you may only need one full time resource. However, if your organization is about 100 people, then you may need 3 to 5 full time resources.


Other factors contributing to this estimate is how strong a ML 2 foundation is already in place and how much of what you currently have in place is at ML 3. Documenting the processes and procedures is the easy part, and it can be done by a small core group. The larger task is deploying the new processes and process assets and having people use them to change how they approach their jobs.

Monday, August 4, 2008

Understanding How Project Planning Evolves from ML 3 to ML 5

The primary difference between project planning at Maturity Level 3 (ML 3) and Maturity Level 5 (ML 5) is how you construct the project’s defined processes. At ML 3 a new project starts from the organization’s set of standard processes and applies the appropriate tailoring criteria or guidelines for the project, based on the project requirements. At Maturity Level 4 (ML 4) and ML 5 a new project first has to define what its quality and process performance objectives are based on the organization’s quality and process performance objectives (QPPOs). Then the project looks at the organization’s set of standard processes and selects the processes or sub-processes that are capable of being quantitatively and statistically managed to achieve the project’s QPPOs using the established Process Performance Baselines and Process Performance Models. These processes and sub-processes are selected based on historical stability and capability data along with the appropriate tailoring guidelines and criteria to construct the project’s defined process.