- 4.1 What You Will Learn in This Chapter
- 4.2 BOND Case Study Background
- 4.3 What Is a Gap Analysis and Why Is It Crucial for Agile Organizations?
- 4.4 Keys to Conducting a Gap Analysis for an Agile Organization
- 4.5 Example of "Potential Weakness" Against CMMI in an Agile Organization
- 4.6 Running Process Improvement like a Project
- 4.7 TWG Approach for Agile Organizations
- 4.8 Revisiting the Goal and Challenges on the Process Improvement Project
- 4.9 Alternative Practices and Tailored Agile TWG
- 4.10 Returning to the Peer Review Example
- 4.11 Tailored TWG Techniques and Lessons at BOND
- 4.12 Preparation Work for Running Agile TWGs
- 4.13 Packaging of Processes
- 4.14 An Agile Organizational Process Asset Structure
- 4.15 Process Asset Guidelines Used at BOND
- 4.16 Different Organizations with Different Process Asset Structures
- 4.17 Agile TWG Roles and Responsibilities
- 4.18 Effective Techniques to Run an Agile TWG
- 4.19 Separating the TWG Work from the Lead Offline Work
- 4.20 What Do You Do When You Find a Gap?
- 4.21 Answers to Common Questions When Running an Agile TWG
- 4.22 Do I Need a DAR Process?
- 4.23 Do I Need to Verify Everything I Develop?
- 4.24 Do I Need to Make Sure the Steps in My Processes Are in the Right Order?
- 4.25 Do I Need to Make Sure Process Descriptions Are Not Redundant?
- 4.26 Can Requirements Be Captured in an Email or PowerPoint Slides?
- 4.27 Do Requirements Need to Be Captured in Single "Shall Statements"?
- 4.28 Formalizing Informality
- 4.29 Summary
- 4.30 Summary: How Agile Helps CMMI
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
4.23 Do I Need to Verify Everything I Develop?
The CMMI model does not dictate the work products that must be verified. SP 1.1 of the Verification Process Area expects each project to select the work products to be verified. Once again, as in so many areas of the CMMI model, this decision is up to you.
Often this practice is overlooked especially in organizations that have been building products for many years. A number of my client organizations are product-centric. Specific Practice 1.1 of Verification is a very good example of how the CMMI can help us reason about our processes. It helps us ask questions that can in turn help us manage our work more effectively. Often the questions that result from using the CMMI are ones we might not think to ask otherwise.
As an example, organizations that rely heavily on product reuse should also be relying heavily on reusing the end product such as the software code, and reusing requirements, test cases, and test results. In other words, if I am reusing a product that has already been verified, I should be able to reuse that verification to gain the benefits of that effort. I will still need certain levels of verification and validation in the new environment where I am reusing the product, but the potential exists to "skip" certain lower levels of verification. To help us reason about where in our processes it makes sense to allow one to "skip" certain verification steps, SP 1.3 reminds us that we should have verification criteria. This leads to the question:
- What are the criteria we use to determine when a verification level can be skipped?
It should be apparent that the creation of criteria can be a powerful aid to help an organization and its processes become more agile in making dynamic work-related decisions. However, criteria can only help if they have been created and personnel are trained in their use.19