CMMI-SVC and Emergence of Open Organizations

Emergence of Open Organization- when will it happen? LinkedIn + Google+Sourceforge+Newscale + Visa
I foresee Newscale/ Pinky/SEI coming up with a master service catalogue that could be integrated with Google where any Group member can have his own service catalog in his profile. The Group Service catalog could well be an Organization's service catalog. Probably any individual would say he has his office is in Yahoo!, Google etc and may add that he works for a particular social enterprise/many enterprises. I also feel that some governmental procedures or a global standard will evolve for the governance of Open companies. My question is does the CMMI-SVC address this?

What you are asking about is a virtual office environment and the tools to enable this environment. There are two practices in the CMMI that address work environments: OPD SP 1.6 Establish and maintain work environment standards and IPM SP 1.3 Establish and maintain the project’s work environment based on the organization’s work environment standards. Since both OPD and IPM are Core Process Areas (PAs), they are common to all CMMI constellations CMMI-DEV, CMMI-ACQ, and CMMI-SVC. So your virtual office concept can work with any of the three constellations.

Interpreting OPD SP 1.6

While discussing Organizational Process Definition (OPD) Specific Practice (SP) 1.6, we arrived at the following two interpretations for a software development organization:

OPD SP 1.6 "Establish and Maintain Work Environment Standards"

Interpretation 1: Work Environment Standard refers to the environment (Hardware, Software) required by a project for its successful completion. So, if a project mentions its resource requirements (including hardware, software, human resources, trainings, skill set, etc) then it will meet the intent of this practice.

Interpretation 2: We need to explicitly document the "Work Environment Standards of the Organization" for this practice, which includes:

• Standard Hardware & Software on a machine
• Standard Hardware & Software configurations on a machine
• Standard LAN Speed required
• Stanadard Internet Speed required
• Standard Temprature
• Standard Dress Code
• Emergency Numbers
• Fire alarms
• Smoke detectors

Which interpretation is correct?

Reading your question gives me the uneasy feeling that you may have not read the informative material for OPD SP 1.6. The model clearly states that “work environment standards allow the organization and projects to benefit from common tools, training, and maintenance, as well as cost savings from volume purchases.” And then there is a list of 6 examples of work environment standards, which I will repeat here:

• Procedures for operation, safety, and security of the work environment
• Standard workstation hardware and software
• Standard application software and tailoring guidelines for it
• Standard production and calibration equipment
• Process for requesting and approving tailoring or waivers

Given this informative material, it is very clear in my mind what constitutes a work environment standard. I would say that your second interpretation is more correct than your first interpretation, though the correct answer is probably a combination of the two. However, I would question why you would include standard temperature, dress code, emergency numbers, fire alarms, and smoke detectors in your work environment standards for software development and maintenance, unless these are safety standards. Do these items affect how you develop software? The work environment standards I typically encounter at a client site include standards for a workstation (including desk, table, chair, computer), a standard software load (including MS Office), standards for the conference rooms (including wired or wireless connections, laptop or desktop, LCD projector, screen, whiteboard, markers, etc.), standards for the development environment, standards for the test environment, and standards for the production environment.

Another Work Environment Question

Both Organizational Process Definition (OPD) and Integrated Project Management (IPM) reference the work environment. What is the difference between OPD SP 1.6 and IPM SP 1.3?

OPD Specific Practice (SP) 1.6 is "Establish and maintain work environment standards" and IPM SP 1.3 is "Establish and maintain the project's work environment based on the organization's work environment standards." OPD is an organizational level Process Area (PA) and IPM is a project level PA.

The expectation for OPD SP 1.6 is that the organization defines work environment standards that allow both the organization and projects to benefit from a common set of tools, training, and maintenance. The intent of OPD SP 1.6 is NOT to define the standard work environment, but to define standards for the work environment. Standards typically include work environment operations, safety, and security procedures, standard hardware and software configurations, standard software application loads, and procedures for requesting waivers or tailoring. In addition, projects may have additional requirements for their work environments.

In contrast, the intent of IPM SP 1.3 is to use the work environment standards defined by OPD SP 1.6 to define the appropriate work environment for the project. The project's work environment might include the development environment, the testing environment, the integration environment, the verification environment, and the validation environment. These environments could be one environment or separate environments and/or facilities.

Work Environment Evidence Question

There are two Specific Practices in the CMMI that address the work environment:

• OPD SP 1.6 Establish and maintain work environment standards
• IPM SP 1.3 Establish and maintain the project’s work environment based on the organization’s work environment standards

There are other Specific Practices in the model that address specific environments:

• VER SP 1.2 Establish and maintain the environment needed to support verification
• VAL SP 1.2 Establish and maintain the environment needed to support validation
• PI SP 1.2 Establish and maintain the environment needed to support the integration of the product components

In addition, the model references a number of other project work environments: maintenance, operational, production, and engineering.

Since IPM SP 1.3 contains the phrase “establish and maintain”, the organization needs to provide for a SCAMPI A appraisal evidence of “formulate”, “document”, and “use” of the project’s work environment. What is appropriate evidence to provide for IPM SP 1.3?

The “document” evidence could be the document(s) containing the description of each of the project’s work environments and its relationship to the organization’s work environment standards. The “formulate” evidence might be the inspection/review report(s) of these document(s). And the “use” evidence could be an example of a work product produced using the documented work environment. For example, evidence of use of the development environment might be a product build report demonstrating use of the environment for developing the product.

Since the Verification, Validation, and Integration Environments are covered by other Process Areas, it would be appropriate to provide for IPM SP 1.3 evidence of use of other components of the documented work environment to demonstrate the work environment covers more than testing.

Establishing the Verification Environment

VER SP 1.2 is “Establish and maintain the environment to support verification.” Companion practices are OPD SP 1.6 “Establish and maintain work environment standards.” And IPM SP 1.3 “Establish and maintain the project’s work environment based on the organization’s work environment standards.”

So what this all means is that you have to define at the organization level what the standards are for verification environments, in IPM define the project’s verification environment(s) in the project plan, and in VER define what the various verification environments are. When you consider VER, there are at least two and possibly more verification environments depending on the system you are developing. At a minimum you have a peer review environment and a product testing environment. Both of these environments have requirements, resources, equipment, and tools which you will have to define yourself. In the case of peer reviews and inspections the environment is many times just the conference room with a whiteboard, LAN connection, computer, and a projector, plus other requirements. The testing environment may be a specific room and equipment set aside as a testing lab, etc. So, to implement VER SP 1.2 you have to define the requirements for each verification environment that you have defined for the project, along with the resources, equipment, and tools, and then the acquisition of these items to actually construct and maintain the environment(s), which also include upgrades over time.

And keep in mind the CMMI definition of the phrase “establish and maintain”, which means formulate, document, and use. Therefore you need to design the environment, document the environment, and use the environment for verification.