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Process Improvement in Quality Management Systems: Case Study of Carnegie Mellon's Capability Maturity Model (CMM)

by Walter R. McCollum, PhD

135 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #04-1478; ISBN 1-4120-3650-X; US$16.00, C$19.00, EUR13.00, £9.50

A tool for senior managers, program managers, project managers, and decision makers in their effort to establish organizational responsibility for software process activities, and to improve process performance across organizations.

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About the Book      About the Author      Excerpts      Catalogue Information

About the Book

Foreword

After more than two decades since the advent of Total Quality Management, one might think there was nothing left to say regarding its application, but Walter Ray McCollum shows that one would be wrong. Process Improvement in Quality Management Systems: Case Study of Carnegie Mellon's Capability Maturity Model (CMM) explores how a company can obtain Level 3 compliance where an organization's processes for management and engineering activities are formally defined, documented, and integrated into a standard process that is understood and followed by the organization's staff in the development and maintenance of software. Once an organization has reached this level, it has a foundation for continuing progress. New processes and tools can be added with minimal disruption, and new staff members can be easily trained to adapt to the organization's practices.

Numerous case studies have been enacted across industries to describe successful, and unsuccessful, implementation of quality management systems and programs. Several generic frameworks for quality management implementation have been proposed to help organizations achieve quality, productivity, and gain a competitive edge. However, few attempts have been made to synthesize frameworks for measuring quality management practices, especially with regard to managing software quality. Phan (2001) found the best-known work concerned with process improvement was the Software Engineering Institute Capability Maturity Model (CMM). However, very few studies have examined the effects of process improvement on quality management systems, and no studies have addressed the variables that impact the effective use of SW-CMM. McCollom mitigates these gaps to offer software development professionals, and developers of quality management systems, the information they need to enhance their effective use of SW-CMM. This book empowers projects, teams, and organizations by giving them the foundation to support reasoned choice, and identify fi ndings relative to the effects of process improvement in quality management systems using SW-CMM, process focus, and risk management training.

Marilyn K. Simon, Ph.D. President Math Power

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About the Author

Dr. Walter "Ray" McCollum is a Senior Management Consultant employed by Science Application International Corporation (SAIC) where he provides clients with organizational performance and transformation options to improve effectiveness and efficiency. He employs methods and practices to improve organizations wherever people are a significant investment. He also employs organizational capabilities to include organizational design, leadership and team development, business process re-engineering, knowledge management, workload analysis, change management holistic analysis, collaborative systems, enterprise integration, human factors, strategic alignment and performance measurement.

In Dr. McCollum's previous position, he oversaw the Biometric Education Program in the Department of Defense Biometric Management Office. He oversaw the development of a Masters level education program and implementation of a Graduate Certificate Program and 5-Day Short Course in Biometrics and Information Assurance through the partnership between the Biometric Management Office and West Virginia University (WVU). He was also responsible for incorporating formal academic programs into Department of Defense long-term training opportunities for various career programs. In that capacity, Dr. McCollum worked with the Department of Defense schools and Military Occupational Specialties (MOS) programs to incorporate biometrics education into courses.

Previously, Dr. McCollum worked for Lockheed Martin, Information Technology at the Pentagon where he was the Manager, Organizational Development (OD). In this capacity, he developed the overall day-to-day operation for the Development and Training Organization. He oversaw and guided the design, approval and implementation of OD and Leadership Development systems and processes. Ray managed subordinate staff providing consultation to enhance the effectiveness of manager and teams to increase organization productivity and customer satisfaction. He also spearheaded Organizational Change efforts to apprise staff of change management phases, adaptation/ acceptance spectrums, organizational systems and subsystems integration.

At ACS Government Solutions in Rosslyn, Virginia, Dr. McCollum was the Training Manager. In this position, he planned prepared and presented internal and external training to technical personnel, managers and government clients. Delivery mechanisms included computer-based training, on-line (web-based training), and classroom instruction with discussions, role-playing and practical exercises. Training areas included Capability Maturity Model (CMM) process training, software development processes, project management, configuration management, requirements management, and quality assurance.

In his previous job, as Training Manager, Educational Services, OneSoft Corporation, McLean Virginia, Dr. McCollum designed and developed on-line computer based training document management libraries. He managed internal and external document management version control and established and incorporated procedural guidelines of document management. He also enforced process management of automated workflow. Walter developed and designed work breakdown structure of document management tools. He developed and delivered training materials on the Customer Relationship Management System (CRM) Clarify.

Dr. McCollum was also an Information Technology Training Analyst with Booz Allen & Hamilton, McLean Virginia where he conducted Business Operations Training and Technology for the National Guard Bureau on Distance Learning Technology in the 50 states and 4 U.S. territories. Training included Instructional Technologies, Audio-graphics, Audio-conferencing, Computer User Support, Video-teleconferencing, Business Plans, Marketing Plans, Financial Management and Property Management. He conducted training on the Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) Network and performed instructional designs and technical writing for instructor and student end-user guides.

While working at Lucent Technologies as Training Manager, Arlington, Virginia, Dr. McCollum conducted End-User Training and System Administration Training with clients and system administrators on Merlin Legend, Merlin Mail, Messaging 2000 and Intuity Audix Voice Mail telephone systems. He coordinated with system consultants, technicians and scheduler to perform programming of telephone modules meeting various organization and agency requirements. He also performed technical writing for instructor and student end-user manuals and incorporated Web-based design into course curriculum.

Prior to working in the commercial sector, Dr. McCollum served thirteen years in the US Air Force where he held various Air Force Specialties to include Information Management, Communications, Special Duty Postal, and Special Duty Reserve Officer's Training Corp (ROTC). His assignments include Office of the Secretary of Defense, Pentagon Washington, DC; Virginia Military Institute, Lexington, VA; Incirlik Air Base, Turkey (OPERATION DESERT STORM); Ellsworth AFB, Rapid City, SD; Clark Air Base, Republic of the Philippines; Langley AFB, Hampton Virginia; Keesler AFB, Biloxi, MS; and Lackland AFB, San Antonio TX.

Dr. McCollum's awards and medals include Air Force Commendation Medal w/1 Oak Leaf Cluster, Joint Meritorious Service Medal, Air Force Achievement Medal w/2 Oak Leaf Clusters, Southwest Asia Service Medal, Humanitarian Service Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Distinguished Graduate Noncommissioned Officer's Academy, Military Citizenship Award Noncommissioned Officer's Academy, and the Office of the Secretary of Defense Junior Enlisted Member of the Year.

Dr. McCollum's educational accomplishments include: Associate of Applied Science Degree in Business Management, Dabney S. Lancaster Community College, Clifton Forge, VA; Bachelor of Science Degree in Psychology, University of the State of New York, Albany, New York; Master of Arts in Management, Webster University, St. Louis, MO; and Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Applied Management and Decision Sciences with a specialization in Organizational Change and Leadership, Walden University, Minneapolis Minnesota.

Dr. McCollum is also an adjunct professor at the University of Phoenix, both on-line and ground at the Maryland and Virginia campuses. He facilitates both graduate and undergraduate programs in the School of Business and the School of Management. He is also a professor at Central Michigan University. Dr. McCollum is ICS Faculty Certified and FLEXNET Online Certified. He is also a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Incorporated and the American Society for Training and Development. Dr. McCollum is also a Registered Organizational Development Consultant.

Dr. McCollum is the President and founder of the Walter McCollum Scholarship Foundation where he is responsible for presenting scholarships to outstanding graduate students who have demonstrated academic excellence, potential for future achievement, and leadership both in school and community activities.

"Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said it best when he said that everyone can't be famous, but everyone can be great. And that greatness is shown through service." Dr. McCollum plans to continue providing service to affect social change in society and our community while paving the way for those coming behind him. He wants his legacy to be one of hope and inspiration.

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Excerpts

Introduction to the Study

INTRODUCTION

After 2 decades of unfilled promises about productivity and quality gains from applying new software methodologies and technologies, organizations are realizing that their fundamental problem is the inability to manage their software processes. A study commissioned by the Department of Commerce's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in June 2002 quantifi es the effect of software defects on the U.S. economy. The study concluded that software defects cost the U.S. economy an estimated $59.5 billion annually, or about 0.6% of the gross domestic product. Because of the rapid growth of software usage, this number has undoubtedly increased. In many organizations, projects are often excessively late and over budget, and the benefi ts of better methods and tools cannot be realized in an undisciplined, chaotic project. In 1999, the Standish Group reported that 23% of software and information technology projects were cancelled before completion, while only 28% fi nished on time and budget with expected functionality. Standish Group data also indicate that 60-80% of the cost of software development is rework, that is, fi xing defects found during testing (Murphy, 1999).

In November 1986, the Software Engineering Institute (SEI), with assistance from the Mitre Corporation, began developing a process maturity framework that would help organizations improve their software processes in terms of an evolutionary path from ad hoc, chaotic processes to mature, disciplined softwareprocesses (Paulk, 1994). The SEI is a federally funded research and development center sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense and operated by Carnegie Mellon University.

After 4 years of experience with the software process maturity framework, the SEI evolved the maturity framework into the Capability Maturity Model® for Software (SW-CMM®) (Weber, 1991). The SW-CMM presents sets of recommended practices in a number of key process areas that have been shown to enhance software process capability. The SW-CMM has been widely accepted as a significant step toward solving the problems that plague the development of Department of Defense (DoD) software (Lawlis 1995).

The SW-CMM provides software organizations with guidance on how to gain control of their processes for developing and maintaining software and how to evolve toward a culture of software engineering and management excellence. It was designed to guide software organizations in selecting process improvement strategies by determining current process maturity and identifying the few issues most critical to software quality and process improvement. By focusing on a limited set of activities and working aggressively to achieve them, an organization can steadily improve its organization-wide software processes to enable continuous and lasting gains in software process capability.

The SW-CMM defines a five-level framework for how an organization matures its software processes. These levels describe an evolutionary path from ad hoc, chaotic processes to mature, disciplined software processes. According to Paulk (1996) the fi ve levels can be briefl y described as follows:

1. Initial: The software processes are characterized as ad hoc and, occasionally, even chaotic. Few processes are defi ned, and success depends on individual effort and heroics.

2. Repeatable: Basic project management processes are established to track cost, schedule, and functionality. The necessary process discipline is in place to repeat earlier successes on projects with similar applications.

3. Defi ned: Management and engineering activities are documented, standardized, and integrated into a family of standard software processes for the organization. Projects use a tailored version of the organization's standard software processes for developing and maintaining software.

4. Managed: Detailed measures of the software processes and product quality are collected. Software processes and products are quantitatively understood and controlled.

5. Optimizing: Continuous process improvement is facilitated by quantitative feedback from the processes and from piloting innovative ideas and technologies.

The SW-CMM has had a major infl uence on software processes and quality improvement around the world. According to Diaz (1997), Raytheon yielded a twofold increase in its productivity and a return ratio of 7.7:1 on its improvement expenditures, for a 1990 savings of $4.48 million for a $0.58 million investment. Over a period of 4_ years, from mid-1988 to the end of 1992, the company eliminated $15.8 million in rework costs (Diaz, 1997). Typical Software Engineering Requests for Proposals (RFPs) from the Department of Defense (DoD) specify that organizations will be evaluated to ensure that they are at SW-CMM Level 2 or 3. This evaluation is used to assess the risks of the organization's software development capability. The message being sent is that unless organizations have established software development processes that satisfy the goals of the SW-CMM, they will have a decreased possibility of winning the contract award.

The SW-CMM is not just applicable to DoD projects. Other organizations may require adherence to the SW-CMM. Present information indicates that industry has also discovered SW-CMM. At the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) Software Engineering Process Group (SEPG) Conference held in Boston, Massachusetts in May 1995, 39% of the attendees were from nongovernment organizations.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The specific problem this research addressed was to determine how SWCMM was being used by two selected organizations and whether the process focus and training programs were having signifi cant impacts on those organizations' software process improvements. Thus, a case study was conducted to determine if software process improvement initiatives in the two organizations were aligned with the organizations' quality management systems and business goals. The objectives of the research were to (a) determine how the SW-CMM was being used by the two organizations, (b) to assess the effects of process focus on the organizations' software development processes and capability maturity, and (c) assess how awareness and risk management training was being implemented by the organizations and how it affected the cultures of the organizations.

The motivation to improve software processes usually results from a business need such as strong competition, increased profi tability, or external regulation. Approaches to improve software development processes, such as business need, motivation to improve, assessment, improvement methods selection, improvement methods implementation, and metrics measure impact are often initiated by an assessment of the current practices and maturity. A number of improvement methods are then recommended and implemented.

The selection and successful implementation of the improvement methods are dependent on many variables such as the current process maturity, skills base, organization, and business issues such as cost, risk, implementation speed, and so forth. Measuring the impact and predicting the success of a specifi c improvement method are diffi cult due to environmental variables external to the method such as staff skills, acceptance, training effectiveness, and implementation effi ciency. Once the improvement method is in place, there is also the question of what to do next. It is necessary to determine whether the method was implemented successfully, whether the process is mature enough to consider implementing additional methods, or whether the selected method is appropriate for use within the current process maturity level and environment.

The Software CMM has been used by software organizations around the world for guiding dramatic improvements in their ability to improve productivity and quality, reduce costs and time to market, and increase customer satisfaction (Miller, 2001). While the SW-CMM has been very infl uential around the world in inspiring and guiding software process improvement, there is some evidence that it has also been misused by some and not used effectively by others.

Many of the abuses of the Software CMM spring from a fear of what "others" may do, such as evaluate simple or alternative implementations adversely, thus leading to loss of a contract. If an organization applies common sense to the SW-CMM and views it as guidance rather than requirement, then many of the interpretation problems for the model vanish (Paulk, 1996).

In the SEI's SW-CMM training, these points are repeatedly emphasized, but the problems persist. "Standards" such as the SW-CMM can help organizations improve their software processes, but focusing on achieving a maturity level without addressing the underlying processes can cause dysfunctional behavior.

Herbsleb (1994) asserted that although the SEI's work has its critics, there is a growing body of data indicating the power of SW-CMM-based process improvement. This case study refl ects how that developing information is relevant to organizational process focus and training.

BACKGROUND OF THE PROBLEM

During the 20th century, theories and models were created and expounded that focus on enhanced worker satisfaction and qualitatively improved product from within the work organizations. This research is focused on one such management system with data gathering from employers currently working within the SW-CMM. The data mass has been gathered for examination in a case study methodology. It is likely that people in work settings using SW-CMM are sensitive to the research questions addressed in this research. Not only should these findings become part of basic effectiveness in the two organizations where this case study occurred, but may well be useful to other organizational operations. This study is particularly worthy because as organizations continue to engage in mergers and acquisitions, this study can help senior managers, program managers, project managers, and decision makers in their efforts to achieve business and process improvement goals.

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

The purpose of the study was to establish the organizational responsibility for software process activities that improve the overall process capability and to develop and maintain a usable set of process assets that will improve processper formance across the organization. This study sought to provide a basis for cumulative, long-term benefi ts to the organization. The study also explored the process improvement goals and identifi ed and evaluated the organization's standard processes and projects' defi ned processes.

Two software development organizations were selected as case study sites to investigate the impact of selected process improvement methods. A number of process improvement methods were selected by the case study site organizations for implementation within the software development organization. The methods were chosen based on the current maturity level, skills base, organization structure, and business issues for each organization. In addition, lessons learned from the implementation and impact of the process improvement methods were captured and documented. In particular, observations concerning the use of the methods were captured including soft factors such as the impact on staff morale, quality culture, and motivation.

The researcher viewed the two organizations using data generated over a period of 4 to 5 years (1998-2002) within a half century of accelerated change in order to see an improvement in performance data. This is a consequence of the relatively long product development cycle times. Performance is normally calculated for a project or product release, such that the trend of data can only be observed by successive releases over time. This structure strengthened the database for the case study.

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Catalogue Information

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