Software Testing Social Network

 

Abstract

{mosgoogle left}  

The process asset library is an important element of an organization’s process improvement effort. This article explains what a process asset library is and provides guidance for its creation and deployment. It should be of particular interest to those working directly with the process guidance that an organization is working to define, organize and deploy into practice, and to those who are charged with developing or selecting a toolset to support automation of a process asset library.

 

 

Defining “Process Asset Library”

 

 

The term “Process Asset Library” is not actually used in the Capability Maturity ModelÒ for Software v1.1 (SW-CMM^Ò), the reference point for many software process improvement efforts[pdc1] .  I first ran into the term as the primary author for the Organization Process Definition Key Process Area on the SW-CMM v1.1 revision team.  The process definition group was working on a tutorial on process definition for the STARS program, one of the SEI’s collaboration partners.  We talked then about a PAL being the place where all the process information the organization values would be made easily accessible to those who need to use it to support performing the organization’s processes. 

 

In the SW-CMM, this concept was loosely translated into the “library of process-related documentation” in the overall process architecture that was used as an example in the SW-CMM front matter.  As software process improvement became more prevalent, the term Process Asset Library (PAL) started to be used more commonly than the “library” term used in the SW-CMM.  Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI^Ò) SE/SW/IPPD version 1.1 took this evolution to heart and includes a glossarydefinition of Process Asset Library: “A collection of process asset holdings that can be used by an organization or project” [1]. [pdc2] 

{mosgoogle left}  

A working definition of process asset library that works for me in teaching about developing and using process guidance is:

 

process asset library:  an organized, well-indexed, searchable repository of process assets that is easily accessible by anyone who needs process guidance information, examples, data, templates, or other process support materials.

 

Please note that this definition says nothing about the technology base used to create or deploy the Process Asset Library.  From a strict CMMI  viewpoint, the Process Asset Library is a technology-independent concept.  However, from a practical viewpoint, this is an extremely high payback area to invest in technology for a process improvement effort.

 

A term in the definition that also bears defining is the term process asset.  CMMI 1.1 defines a process asset as “anything that the organization considers useful in attaining the goals of a process area.”  I tend to go beyond this definition.  In my experience, a process asset is any process guidance, in whatever form, that an organization believes is worth investing in and evolving or storing, and that the organization expects will provide a return on investment that makes it worthwhile to store and/or evolve the asset.  Even if I never used a CMM as the basis for improvement, identifying process assets and making them accessible are worthwhile investments for a business. 

 

The Purposes of a PAL

 

 

The purposes of a PAL include, but are not limited, to the following:

 

·         provide a central knowledge base for acquiring, defining, and disseminating guidance about processes related to the organization’s tasks (usually product development and improvement)

 

·         reduce unnecessary duplication of process assets in the organization and the work that goes into re-creating assets

 

·         provide mechanisms for sharing knowledge about the organization’s process assets and how they are used

 

·         provide an effective learning environment for new employees expected to use the organization’s processes

 

·         provide a basis for making decisions about evolving and tailoring the organization’s processes

 

·         improve the consistency of content and application of process guidance throughout the organization

 

A question I am sometimes asked is “What’s the difference between a PAL and a methodology or life-cycle definition?”  When you look at the purposes of the PAL, there are some elements that are very much like the purpose of a methodology or life-cycle definition (i.e., “provide mechanisms for sharing knowledge about the organization’s process assets and how they are used”).  However, in most cases the scope of a methodology or life cycle definition is much smaller than the overall scope of a PAL.  Whereas a PAL would be expected to contain samples of completed process assets (i.e., Software Quality Assurance Plans) from several representative business contexts of an organization and the lessons learned from each one, a methodology or life-cycle definition might just mention the SQA Plan as an artifact and might have a template for one, perhaps with one or two representative examples.

 

Expected Business Impact of a PAL

 

 

Why would an organization invest in designing and deploying a PAL?  For a small organization, a PAL is a key infrastructure element that reduces training time that can be ill afforded during growth spurts, and helps lead to a process-focused culture that provides a backbone of discipline for the organization [2].  The ability to rapidly deploy and use processes to serve the needs of their marketplace is a critical attribute of an organization experiencing hypergrowth [3].  For a large organization, a PAL provides one of the infrastructure elements required to support movement from one set of behaviors to another, by making public the “new rules” that the organization intends to live by.  A well-designed and deployed PAL also reduces training time in the large organization.

 

Other business impacts that may be accrued, depending on the other process characteristics of the organization, might include:

 

·         increasing the adherence to the preferred processes in the organization by making the process guidance in the PAL the auditing basis for SQA audits

 

·         increasing the participation of staff in making suggestions for changes to process assets, if responses are reasonably and visibly responded to

 

·         reducing the cost of project startup, both from the perspective of less training time required to get staff up to speed on the processes to be used, and from the perspective of active, planned  reuse of existing assets where appropriate.

 

In the Workshop on High Maturity Practices held at the SEI in November 1999, and again in 2001, virtually all the organizations practicing at high maturity levels cited the existence of a well-organized electronic PAL as a key enabler of their high maturity culture [4], and several informally stated that they wished they had considered the information design issues of their process asset library earlier in their improvement efforts.

 

Critical Attributes of a PAL

 

 

To accrue any of the benefits cited above, a PAL must be well designed and effectively deployed.  Challenges of deploying a PAL will be covered in a later section.  The attributes of the PAL itself influence its ability to support the purposes and achieve the potential business impacts cited above.  The following table lists and describes several attributes of a PAL that I look for when evaluating the design and implementation of a PAL.  These attributes are not necessarily ranked in order of importance; the ones that are more important tend to vary in terms of overall organizational culture and other factors that are outside the design of the PAL itself.

 

 

 

 

Table 1. Critical Attributes of a Process Asset Library

 

Issues and Challenges in Creating and Deploying a PAL

 

 

Like anything worth pursuing, there are issues and challenges related to creating a process asset library.  Some of the ones I’ve run into are described below:

 

·         converting from print-based documentation to online documentation.  Moving from documentation that is designed for use via print versus documentation in a process asset library that is designed to be used via the computer desktop is one of the often-overlooked issues in creating and deploying a PAL.  Principles of information design and presentation that are used in Web-based applications, such as creating hidden hierarchies and chunking and tagging information into screen-sized “bites,” are principles that many engineers are familiar with applying to the applications they develop, but not necessarily to print documents that are being converted for online use.  If documentation residing in the PAL is not optimized for online presentation, users will find the information difficult to navigate to find the particular details they are looking for.

 

·         Not enough participation and buy-in from opinion leaders among the staff expected to use the PAL.  We all know the risks of not including opinion leaders in process definition exercises, but we may not pay as close attention to them when it comes to the design of the PAL and its indexing structure.  Getting user help and buy-in on the structure of the PAL, the conventions used to identify different types of information, process documentation formats, and the level of detail of contents is one way to extend their inclusion and reduce resistance to organizing and searching for information in this new environment.  Not paying attention to this issue has many of the same consequences as in other areas of process improvement where user buy-in is needed.

 

·         Spending too much of your improvement resources on creating the software and infrastructure needed to support the PAL.  Many of the people who get involved in process improvement have been software engineers for much of their career.  The types of tasks that they find themselves performing in an SEPG or other type of process support group are a far cry from the tasks they performed as software engineers.  Creating a PAL application is one of the few things in the typical SEPG tasks that resembles work that the improvement team members are comfortable doing.  This makes it tempting to pay more attention to working on the infrastructure related to developing the PAL than to its contents or the issues related to getting the process guidance adopted by the organization as improved practices.  If the SEPG is perceived as spending all their time trying to build a PAL application, the management and engineering staff that are counting on them to help move improved practices into the organization are likely to become impatient, since they won’t be able to see anything happening from the SEPG for a significant period of time.  If a PAL is being internally developed, make sure that the bulk of the SEPG resource is focused on behavior change aspects of the improvement effort rather than building the PAL infrastructure. 

 

·         Deploying the PAL without sufficient training in its intended usage.  There are different ways to use the typical information that is housed in a process asset library.  For example, the PAL can be used as a source for the process guidance to be used to support an audit of process adherence, and it can be used to train new employees in the processes that are in use in the organization.  Understanding how the information is to be used and training users in how to access the correct information for their purpose increases the utility of the PAL greatly.  Not providing training, on the other hand, makes it more likely that guidance will be misused and/or ignored.

 

As always, there are other factors that will play into the success or failure of an individual organization in creating and deploying a process asset library, just as with other types of improvements.  The ones cited above are ones that we have run into in multiple organizational contexts as we move customers toward more useful, and used, PALs.

 

Summary

 

 

A process asset library is a strategy that can help in changing the expectations or behavior of staff in a process improvement effort.  By bringing together both guidance on how processes should be performed and examples of successful performance of processes, the process asset library facilitates the adoption and institutionalization of new behaviors.  Although creating and deploying a process asset library involves challenges, such as moving to online document formats and getting sufficient participation from opinion leaders, having  “just in time, where I live” access to process guidance provides benefits in the areas of process enactment fidelity and ease of use that far outweigh the challenges.

 

References

 

1.  CMMI for Systems Engineering/Software Engineering/Integrated Product and Process Development, v1.02, CMU/SEI-2000-TR-031.

 

2.  Garcia, Suzane, “Successul Use of the Software Capability Maturity Model in a Small Organization”,  Proceedings of the International Conference on Software Quality, 1999.

 

 

 

3.  Moore, Geoffrey, Inside the Tornado: Marketing Strategies from Silicon Valley’s Cutting Edge, HarperCollins, New York, 1995.

 

 

 

4. Paulk, Mark C. and Chrissis, Mary Beth, The November 1999 High Maturity Workshop (CMU/SEI-2000-SR-003), Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie  Mellon  University, Pittsburgh, 2000

    

5. Paulk, Mark C. and Chrissis, Mary Beth, The 2001 High Maturity Workshop
   Mark C. Paulk Mary Beth Chrissis Special Report CMU/SEI-2001-SR-014  

    

 

 

 

Next >