A
supportive and effective infrastructure is required for facilitating the
coordination of various activities that place during the course of the whole
program. In addition to these qualities the infrastructure should be quite
flexible so as to be able to support the changing demands of the software
process improvement with time.
Resources for this program include:
- Infrastructure and
building support
- Sponsorship
- Commitment
- Baseline activities
- Technologies
- Coordinate training
resources
- Planning expertise
- Baseline action plan
and so on.
- When this program is initiated, a
primitive infrastructure is put in to place for the management of the
activities that would be carried out by the organization under SPI.
- The
resources mentioned above are also the initial accomplishments that tell how
well the infrastructure has been performing.
- It is the purpose of the infrastructure
to establish a link between the program’s vision and mission, to monitor it and
guide it and obtaining resources and allocating them.
- Once the SPI program, a
number of improvement activities will be taking place across the different
units of the organization.
- These improvement activities cannot be performed
serially rather they take place in parallel.
- The configuration management,
project planning, requirements management and reviews etc. are addressed by the
TWGs (technical working groups).
- But all these activities are tracked by the
infrastructure.
- Support for the following issues must be provided by the
infrastructure:
- For a technology
that is to be introduced.
- Providing
sponsorship
- Assessment of the
organization impact
- As the program progresses, the
functions to be performed by the infrastructure increase.
- There are 3 major
components of the SPI program:
- SEPG or software
engineering process group
- MSG or management
steering group
- TWG or technical
work group
- It is third component from which
most of the resources are obtained including:
- Human resources
- Finance
- Manufacturing
- Development
- However, the most important is the
first one and is often called the process group.
- It provides sustaining support
for the SPI and reinforcing the sponsorship.
- The second component i.e., the MSG
charters the SEPG.
- This is actually a contract between the SEPG and the
management of the organization.
- Its purpose is to outline the roles and the responsibilities
and not to forget the authority of the SEPG.
- The third component is also known
as the process improvement team or process action team.
- Different work groups
created focus on different issues of the SPI program.
- A software engineering
domain is addressed by the technical work group.
- It is not necessary for the
TWGs to address the technical domains; they can address issues such as software
standardization, purchasing, travel reimbursement and so on.
- The team usually
consists of the people who have both knowledge and experiencing regarding the
area under improvement.
- The life of TWGs is however finite and is defined in
the charter.
- Once they complete their duties, they return back to their normal
work.
- In the early stages of SPI program, the TWGs might tend to underestimate
the time that would be required for the completion of the objectives assigned
to them.
- So the TWGs have to request to the MSG for allotting them more time.
- Another
important component could be the SPIAC or software process improvement advisory
committee.
- This is created in organizations where there are multiple
functioning SEPGs.
