Express Process Appraisal

EPA - Appraisal Approach

In offering a mechanism for fast appraisal of processes, the CSPT has deliberately adopted the process areas defined within the CMMI®. This facilitates uniformity of approach and allows for the option of EPA being used as a diagnostic tool when contemplating full SCAMPI^SM Class-A appraisal.

The EPA procedure is designed to require minimal preparation by the host organisation. It consists of 8 stages covering planning, briefing, consultation, evaluation and reporting as follows:

1. Appraisal Schedule Planning
2. Overview Briefing
3. Site Briefing
4. Analysis of Key Documents
5. Examination of Objective Evidence
6. Appraisal Results Generation
7. Final Report Generation
8. Findings Presentation

Process Areas

The process areas covered by the EPA programme are

1. Project Planning
2. Project Monitoring and Control
3. Supplier Agreement Management
4. Risk Management
5. Requirements Management
6. Requirements Development
7. Technical Solution
8. Product Integration
9. Verification
10. Validation
11. Configuration Management
12. Process and Product Quality Assurance
13. Measurement and Analysis
14. Organisational Training

What is Express Process Appraisal?

Express Process Appraisal (EPA) is a method for evaluating the health of, and identifying improvement opportunities in, the management, engineering and support processes of a company’s systems and software development practices.

Benefits

The CSPT’s Express Process Appraisal programme will help you to:

• Provide exposure to process improvement ideals to your staff.
• Target appropriate development processes for evaluation.
• Create a forum in which staff can freely examine their working practices.
• Build commitment to a process improvement programme.
• Gain visibility into your company’s process performance.
• Build a process improvement plan.

How Will This Be Achieved?

The programme will assist you in reviewing and identifying opportunities for improving your systems and software development processes by comparing them to industry standard practices using the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI®).

EPA consultants will guide you through the selection of appropriate processes for review in your company. Through an appreciation of the issues identified, together with your company’s business objectives, the results of the appraisal will help you develop a plan for your process improvement activities

Who is Express Process Appraisal For?

Express Process Appraisal has been uniquely designed to cater for all sectors of the ICT industry engaged in the development of software-intensive systems. This has been achieved through a careful structuring of the model to allow maximum flexibility. Any of the 14 process areas can be appraised at either the organisational or project level.

Organisational Level Appraisal – One or more process areas are appraised by sampling across projects. The appraisal is concentrated on functional areas and observations are indicative of trends across project teams.

Project Level Appraisal – One or more process areas are appraised against a single project. The results indicate strengths and weaknesses in that project only.

Further Information

Members of staff from the CSPT have developed a Class-C CMMI® appraisal method which is called Express Process Appraisal (EXPRESS).

• An Overview of EXPRESS Process Appraisal

A breakfast briefing session entitled "What Can Process Improvement Do For You?" provided an opportunity for EPA practitioners to share their experiences of Process Improvement

• What Can Process Improvement Do For You? (George Wilkie, CSPT)
• Case Study: Singularity (Rachel Doherty, Singularity)
• Case Study: CSPT CMMI Appraisal for ICS Computing (Fernando Gutierrez , ICS Computing)
• Case Study: What Did Process Improvement Ever Do For Us? (Martin Goss, EG Information Consulting)

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® CMMI is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office by Carnegie Mellon University