ProPAMet: A Metric for Process and Project Alignment (original) (raw)
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A case study applying Process and Project Alignment Methodology
Software Process Improvement (SPI) is one of the main software development challenges. However, SPI standards and models (CMMI, SPICE) have not been always adopted with success. The current problem is a lack of strategy to implement successfully these standards and models. To undertake this objective is essential observe real life experiences and detect process and project mutual relationships. Without this alignment it will not be possible to find out how process management is really important to achieve organization's strategic objectives. This paper proposes a methodology that allows the definition, evaluation and improvement of an organization software development process. This proposal, called a Process and Project Alignment Methodology (ProPAM), allows the specification of an organization development process, as well process and project alignment. ProPAM presents the following life cycle: (1) process definition; (2) project definition considering a base process model; (3) project coordination and monitoring and (4) process improvement assessment. This paper also provides an overview of the action plan to be taken within the software organizations that intent to conduct a SPI initiative. This plan includes two distinct phases: (1) specify the development process and (2) analyze projects, starting an SPI effort. In order to evaluate ProPAM, a study case is undertaken. The case study is performed following the action plan and presents all the steps of the ProPAM. Final results show that, when the organization started using ProPAM, process and project alignment reduced project planning time and effort. ProPAM also introduced new organizational practices that result in a SPI program.
ProPAM: SPI based on Process and Project Alignment
Software Process Improvement is one of the main software development challenges. Unfortunately, process descriptions generally do not correspond to the processes actually performed during software development projects. They just represent high-level plans and do not contain the information necessary in a software project. This lack of alignment between the process and project is caused by processes that are unrelated to project activities and failure in detecting project changes to improve the process. Process and project alignment is essential to really find out how process management is important to achieve an organization's strategic objectives. Considering this alignment, this paper presents a software process improvement methodology designed by Process and Project Alignment Methodology (ProPAM).
Process and project alignment methodology: A case-study based analysis
Computer Science and Information Systems, 2016
Process descriptions represent high-level plans and do not contain information necessary for concrete software development projects. Processes that are unrelated to daily practices or that are hardly mapped to project practices, cause misalignments between processes and projects. We argue that software processes should emerge and evolve collaboratively within an organization. With this propose, this article describes the ProPAM methodology and explores the details of its static view. We also present a case study to validate effectiveness of the proposed methodology. The aim of the case study was to analyse the effects of using ProPAM in a IT organization.
Approaches to strategic alignment of software process improvement: A systematic literature review
Context : Software process improvement (SPI) aims to increase the effectiveness of a software organization. Many studies indicate that the strategic alignment is a critical factor for the SPI success. However, little is known about practical approaches to achieving and maintaining such alignment. Objective : The goal of this study is to evaluate the validation evidence of the existing approaches to the strategic alignment of SPI. Method : We develop a search protocol that combines database search and snowballing to perform the systematic literature review and evaluate empirical studies by applying rigor and relevance criteria. To evaluate the efficiency of our protocol, we use a " quasi-gold standard " to compute the sensitivity and precision of the search. Result : We identified 30 studies (18 empirical) and 19 approaches to strategic alignment of SPI from 495 retrieved studies. Only three out of the 18 empirical studies were rated as high in the categories rigor and relevance, suggesting the need for a stronger validation of the approaches. Conclusion : We conclude that the lack of empirical validation indicates that the results of the existing approaches have not been adequately transferred to practitioners yet, calling for more rigorous studies on the subject.
Business process management: establishing and maintaining project alignment
Purpose -The aim of the research was to develop a model for establishing and maintaining alignment of purpose in business change initiatives. Design/methodology/approach -The research methodology combined a synthesis of the literature across the diverse fields of change leadership, project management, and organisational alignment; and a parallel analysis of two industrial case studies. Findings -From an analysis of the cases, and a synthesis of the literature, a Project Alignment Model was developed. To help industrial project leaders operationalise the model and hence maintain alignment in their projects, the key points from the Project Alignment Model are also presented as a checklist. Practical implications -Managing change is increasingly relevant for all industries and companies, and the rate of change is predicted to increase. Project managers in this environment must have more than just technical delivery skills; they need to be good leaders, capable of influencing strategic direction, and skilled in managing the political dimensions of their projects. The model presented will help these leaders improve their change management capability. Originality/value -The developed model can be useful both as a descriptive model and as a prescriptive model. Used descriptively, the model can help structure the analysis of change projects. As such it could be a useful research instrument. Academics could use the model to analyse change projects and structure their findings in a way that allows ready cross-case comparisons. Such an approach can, by categorisation, lead to a more detailed understanding of the factors affecting project alignment and successful change. Used prescriptively, the model can guide project managers in creating and maintaining project alignment, and in doing so increase their chance of success in implementing change.
Validation of a Measurement Framework of Business Process and Software System Alignment
Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems, 2010
The alignment degree existing between a business process and the supporting software systems expresses how the software systems support the business process. This measure can be used for indicating business requirements that the software systems do not implement. Methods are needed for detecting the alignment level existing between software systems and business processes and identifying the software changes to be performed for increasing and keeping an adequate alignment level. This paper proposes a framework including a set of metrics codifying the alignment concept with the aim of measuring it, detecting misalignment, identifying and performing software evolution changes. The framework is, then, validated through a case study.
Enhancing Engineering Project Management Through Process Alignment
Engineering Management Journal, 2021
In order to lead successful projects, coordinating the different business units of a company is compulsory. This paper proposes a framework to make companies' practices evolve toward a better alignment of the business units based on their processes, and illustrates it with project management and systems engineering processes. Indeed, all the different organization units intend to serve the common global objective to satisfy the customer needs, and need to closely collaborate during projects. However, work organization in companies often leads to barriers between these stakeholders, with the result of an incoherent decision-making that may compromise project execution. Therefore, the issue of processes alignment from different domains lies at the very heart of ongoing research topics and ranks first among economic and industrial concerns. This paper uses a qualitative approach to show how different business units' processes can be integrated and illustrate this framework by aligning the systems engineering and project management processes within a certain engineering project context. By using the proposed framework, different teams (or even different companies, in a context of distributed enterprise) can align their practices, while also making them evolve toward a better compliance with standards.
Istar, 2008
The continuous alignment of organizational processes with an organizations' business strategy is a key factor to its success. This paper reports on the application of the i* framework to support the continuous alignment of corrective software maintenance processes with the strategic goals of a Software Design Maintenance Organization at Ericsson Marconi Spa. Using the i* modeling framework, alignment of process elements with related business goals was successfully represented, captured and analyzed, which in turn facilitated process improvement efforts. To better deal with large i* models, a model slicing technique based on goals was introduced, which made models more readable, and contributed substantially to how the maintenance processes were analyzed and improved.
Supporting Software Process Improvement with Project Assessments
Seminar in Scandinavia (IRIS …, 1999
One of the most popular ways to improve the software development capability in organizations is to embark upon a Software Process Improvement (SPI) program based on one of the existing capability maturity models. Some of the challenges in norm-based SPI ...
A Case Study of Software Process Improvement Implementation
Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering, 2010
Managing a successful Software Process Improvement (SPI) is a challenging issue that many software companies face today. Many companies have invested huge amount of money in improving their software processes. This can be confirmed through several papers that present the results of SPI programs. However, as pointed out by the literature, many of these programs have encountered difficulties to achieve the desired benefits. This is usually not caused by incorrect new processes, but due to inadequate SPI implementation and, particularly inadequate SPI adoption. This paper evaluates an SPI program, discussing its implementation problems with emphasis on adoption issues. The analysis was carried out as a case study in a software development organization. Our findings suggest that other than finance, technology and other issues, several implementation aspects, in particular effective adoption strategy, are needed to achieve a successful SPI program. Our main contribution is to give evidences that an SPI implementation process can be assessed and improved using objective measurements and available methods and practices. In particular, we measure the adoption of an SPI practice, analyzing the evolution of the improved practices rework during the development of two software projects.