Process Improvement Services: Expert Guidance and Support

Services

ISR's services for process improvement focus on guiding an organization through the step-by-step development and ongoing implementation of the CMMI-based process improvement program. With our world-class process improvement team and comprehensive resources from academia and industry, we supply detailed implementation advice and proven solutions that are readily applied to large, medium and small organizations, in a variety of languages and cultures, to optimize their processes resulting in measurable improvements.

Typically, ISR's process improvement services are packaged by consulting, training, and appraisal services, described as follows:

Consulting

ISR can provide the following consulting services:

1. Conduct a project kick-off workshop with the management and engineering process group of the organization. This will lay the groundwork for a successful improvement effort by guiding the organization in setting the expectation of process improvement. Establishing necessary infrastructure to support the project and developing a high level action plan, will enable organizations to implement improvement activities to track improvement actions.

2. Perform a gap analysis for selected engineering teams. The gap analysis will provide a more refined list of required actions, which will be prioritized according to the organization's business goals. This prioritization will allow the organization to achieve early gains in process improvement, as well as an orderly and incremental implementation of processes and procedures.

3. Provide professional consulting to the process group to successfully complete their improvement actions. The focus of this consulting effort will be to ensure that the process group is trained and supported in their role to develop processes and procedures for the organization. Activities include assisting with the roll-out of each of the defined proccesses, developing and delivering related training, evaluating the effectiveness of the proccesses during pilot implementation, and assisting with the full-range roll-out strategies.

Training

ISR can provide the following training services:

1. SEI Official Introduction to CMMI course. The course introduces participants to the CMMI Model and its fundamental concepts. The lectures and discussions emphasize the structure of CMMI, understanding of the five maturity levels, and acquaintance with the practices of the related Process Areas. All students successfully completing the course will be registered in the SEI database. This will fulfill one of the requirements to become a SCAMPI Appraisal team member, and to be authorized by the SEI for other credentials such as SCAMPI Lead Appraiser and Introduction to CMMI instructor.

2. SEI SCAMPI Appraisal Method Training course. The course helps the candidate appraisal team members understand steps of the SCAMPI appraisal process, as well as the underlying principles of the appraisal process. After the course, students will be able to effectively perform document reviews, conduct interviews, determine practice characterizations, develop preliminary findings, determine ratings, and develop final findings for a SCAMPI class A appraisal. By applying the principles taught in the course, participants will also be able to conduct self-assessment for the organization's current practices, and identify gaps in the CMMI model.

3. CMMI Process Area Workshops. These workshops will focus on a single set of related CMMI process areas, with more in-depth coverage than is offered in the Introduction to CMMI course. The organization will be able to select workshops that fill their specific needs, in the areas identified as most difficult by the organization. Examples of the process area workshops are: Software Project Management, Measurement and Metrics, Requirements Engineering, Project Management, Configuration Management, Quality Assurance, Peer Reviews, Risk Management, Process Definition, etc.

4. General Software Engineering Courses. ISR maintains a pool of world-class training courses in software engineering. Organizations will be able to take selected courses in addition to the CMMI course, to build organizational competencies in software engineering. Examples of general software engineering courses are: Software Architecture, Agile Software Development, Security for Software Engineers, Data Mining, COTs-based Integration, Managing Software Outsourcing, etc. For each of the ISRI courses, Carnegie Mellon University will issue certificates to students who complete the courses successfully.

Appraisals

ISR can provide the following appraisal services:

1. SCAMPI Class A Appraisal. SCAMPI Class A is designed to provide benchmark quality ratings relative to CMMI. It is applicable to a wide range of appraisal usage modes, including both internal process improvement and external capability determinations. With ISR's world-class Lead Appraisers, ISR brings unparalleled experience and unique industrial expertise to each SCAMPI Appraisal,making the appraisal more valuable than by assigning a Maturity Level or Capability Level.

2. SCAMPI Class B or C Appraisal. SCAMPI B and C are effective diagnostic tools that can be used to facilitate CMMI-based process improvement, as well as overall improvement strategies. These methods help organizational maturity by identifying process strengths and weaknesses as related to the best practices of CMMI.