Implementing CMMI® with Visual Studio Team System

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Implementing CMMI® with Visual Studio Team System

Customers who wish to automate Capability Maturity Model CMM® Integration or CMMI from Software Engineering Institute (SEI) can use IRIS Process Author to develop organization-wide standard processes. These processes can then be tailored for each specific project. The tailored processes are enacted in Visual Studio Team System. The resultant metrics are captured and reported using IRIS Process Metrics. The metrics, along with the lessons learned, are captured and channeled back to IRIS Process Author to support ongoing process improvements. This integrated solution fully supports all compliance, metrics and portfolio reporting supporting successful implementation of CMMI In order to realize the benefits of successful implementing of CMMI ®, organizations have to gear up to the development, enactment and measurement of their software and systems development processes. The benefits of implementing CMMI ®, in terms of predictability in quality, time and cost dimensions, is available only to those organizations that implement the practices of this model in its true spirit and intent. These benefits are not available to those who are simply seeking the ‘badge’ of CMMI® certification. Costs and time involved in a well-intended and well-implemented CMMI-based processes are easily offset by positive return-on-investment (ROI) resulting from achieving process maturity. The manual task required to integrate and document engineering, project management and supporting process under a unified Organizational Set of Standard Processes (OSSP) is compounded by the ongoing requirement to create tailored processes for each project from OSSP using the prescribed tailoring guidelines. This key requirement is largely met using disparate and often unstructured documentation in various formats such as MS-Word, Web pages, diagrams – all created manually. The lack of automation leads to increased costs and inconsistencies in process documentation. The projects enacted from the tailored processes often lack the automation required to ensure process compliancy which results in failed and distressed project outcomes thus defeating the very purpose of implementing this quality management framework. Lack of automation in data collection and integrated reporting, required to support process effectiveness and compliance, negatively impacts or delays the process improvement cycle. The solution using IRIS and Visual Studio Team system helps in automating processes and reporting required for a successful CMMI implementation. It also reduces overhead by automating all tasks from development, tailoring, enactment of processes to metrics collection. Real-time reporting for compliancy and assessment are essentially products of using the solution which results in reduced time and cost while delivering true benefits of CMMI implementation. IRIS Process Author enables the development of structured online process repository (OSSP) which supports the creation of new project-specific processes by way of tailoring. Using pluggable process architecture in the form of re-usable process components, process can be easily build or tailored either from internal best practices or methodologies such as MSF™ for CMMI® Implementation, IBM RUP ®, etc. IRIS Process Author comes bundled with MSF™ which helps organizations fast-tracked the CMMI implementation. Using IRIS, organizations can also integrate their own best practices with MSF™. Any tailored process in IRIS Process Author can be used to create VSTS process template for enactment. This allows creation of project checklist for enactment in VSTS with cross-references to related process guidance providing project managers with an integrated approach designed to reduce the gap between the project and process management. Under this solution, all team members participate in the enactment of projects. Developers, testers and other members of the engineering team use VSTS’s powerful work item tracking capability for process enactment whereas Project managers and other project stakeholders use MS-Project for project management. IRIS Process Metrics helps automate the process of collecting the required metrics, lessons learned, etc. including custom metrics defined by the process. This integrated process enactment solution, which includes SQL reporting, collects and presents wealth of information required for improving the processes and demonstrating automated compliancy with CMMI®. The most compelling aspect of process automation for CMMI® is the fact that it provides a roundtrip solution supporting all process areas of CMMI®. It also helps empower process developers to make adjustments to the OSSP and associated tailoring guidelines based on quantitative (metrics) and qualitative (lessons learned) data from live projects thus implementing a comprehensive continuous process improvement framework.p>