Standard processes

implementation success factors

By Ms.Cherapa Wannasuk
Position: Senior Consultant
Gosoft (Thailand) Co.,Ltd.
E-mail: cherapa@yahoo.com, cherapa@gosoft.co.th
Tel: +6626779471
Mobile: +66981408022

Abstract
We all know that there are a lot of IT processes announced from many organizations.
The world most popular are ISO, ITIL and CMMI. Many IT organizations would like to
apply the standard and some have planned to certify. Our organization is currently
doing. I am one of participates in this implementation.

It is not easy to apply standard. There are many ways to make it happens. First of all
support from top management. How about the other key success factors and how
they are significant to do it. This paper will have some answers.

It is not showing the complete lists but I do show the way to find them for you.

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Introduction
Standard processes are the best practices that the well-known organizations has
established and announced to public. The success stories of implementation best
practice are wild spread. In Thailand, our government would like Thai IT companies
to certified standard processes. It is one of many ways to promote your organization.
The government really supports us. If your company successfully implemented and
get certificated your company name will be on the list of the government web site
and at the same time your company will get announcement in the certification
organization.

I would like to say that it will help the company to do positioning and at the same
time do marketing and advertisement. Of course, we need to pay some money and
normally we gain more.

Establish objectives of implementation to be matched with business objectives is the

first concerned. Do we really know that how standard processes help you?

I would like to start with the word “standard”. From http://dictionary.reference.com/,

Standard (noun) is (1.) something considered by an authority or by general consent
as a basis of comparison; an approved model. So when you implement standard
processes then you have the measurement processes at the same time. You should
make sure that you set up the suitable processes to your organization. The data that
you get from the processes is really helping you in decision making. I really mean it.
That is the reason why when you finished the processes development you should
pilot, review and improve them.

Let me show you the simple steps and give you the success factors at the last topic.

Start the development processes

The standard processes are a lot to choose. I let this decision to management. When
they select one they must totally support with confident. We as the follower have to
find the way to implement it. If you start with nothing, hiring the well-known
consultant firm is one of my recommendations. You will get the basic processes how
to implement the processes and you get the experience hands to help you to
compare your processes with the standard.

From introduction, objectives should be set up and followed. Then you go the
following.
1. Establish the full time implementation project team with formal
announcement from management
2. Project manager of the team create the plan and get approved from
management. From the study, CMMI level 2 has 7 processes, and level 3 has
11 processes, level 4 has 2 processes, level 5 has 2 processes. There are
many processes to be written and implemented. If your organization would
like to certify stage or continuous. Before you make a plan you should make
decision that how far the management would like to go. It is your scope of
work. It is the input to make the detail planning. Then you start your plan.
3. Perform kick-off meeting. After your plan was approved, you should do the
first meeting, announce the team members, and assign tasks to them.

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 4. Execute the plan. Process implementation is not liked software development.
They are related to the detail work of the employees in every level. You will
develop the processes base on the normal work process. I mean write what
you do and do what you write.
5. Monitoring and control. It is about the processes development. The monitor
and control here are about monitor the process team work compare with plan
and control the output (it is the process). The output process must be
complied with the standard that we select. When you finished each one you
have to stay in the group, invite the team members who will use to review.
You have to ensure that you understand the standard and can explain the
user deep in detail to many related questions during review.
6. Assess the organization processes. I know that if you hire consultant they will
help you a long the way to here. They will assess your processes and report
the finding to you. You will know how you process deviate to the standard
model that you would like to comply.
7. Evaluate the processes and perform the improvement. When you get the
report you have to come back to understand the finding and do the
improvement.

It is not difficult but it is not easy too. Many efforts will be put to make sure that all
staffs in your organization buy in the idea of the processes. I am confident that
management support will drive you team 70% chance of success.

The final processes will be announced as baseline to the entire organization. Then
you are ready to the next step.

Execute the processes

This process is very important. You have to implement the process to the team that
they support the idea of success first. They know how important of the process and
they are ready to measure their progress.

We will develop training for the processes and templates to the pilot team members.
Then let them check out the process to use. During the pilot you have to do the next
step. I suggest that at least 4 pilot projects are executed with different size,
schedule and effort.

Monitoring and control the processes

We should monitor how the pilot team follow the processes, how they use the
templates. Non-conformance report is the tool that implementation team will use.
These are the contents.
1. NC ID.
2. Project ID. Enter the ID of the assess project.
3. Process ID/Name. Give you the ID and name of the process.
4. Execute role. Specify the role that does this process.
5. Execute by. Determine name of the executed team member.
6. Task performs. Describe detail task during observation or interview.
7. Finding. Specify what we find out. What is different from the processes?
What is missing?
8. Recommendation. Give the instruction to the executer.
9. Next review. Specify the next review date.

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Key success factors
There are a lot of key points that we have to concern related the standard process
implementation do. There are considered the success factors.

Management Support
The first one as I mention in abstract is management support. We can start from
the bottom but take a look at the detail of the junior staffs. They should do their jobs.
They did not have authorized to say no much. They did not get authorized to make
any commands. In this implementation they are the good followers. At least 70%
success if they agreed to do so. By establishing the organization policy and
announced to all staffs level, they will know how to perform.

Think positive
We look into the good way of having standard processes. We will know how to
encourage staffs to use the process and corporate information to make it happen.

Understand the organization

We should know what we have, our cultures, our staffs moral, behavior and attitude.
It will help us to estimate how far from what we are to what we want to achieve.
When we make goals they must be SMART goals. At the same time we can make
them happen in our life. What we are trying to do is really helped our organization
success in the market. When we make a plan we will find out.

Understand the model processes

All develop processes team must understand the model that we would like to adapt.
Some topics are new to me when I start reading it. I believe if you understand the
model and for the time to implement you can prove that why your process is looked
like this. You are able to map the process that you write with the process model. You
can explain to the employee the reasons. You can pick the right metric for your
organization and know how to use it for process improvement.

Write what you do and do what you write

This is the simple sentence. When we write the process we have to ensure that we
can follow the process with confidence and comply with the standard model just in
case you need to certify.

When you write the processes you will see the strength, weakness, opportunity and
threat of them. There are three types of processes in my opinion, working,
monitoring and control. If your staff are responsible and commit to their jobs you
don’t need a lot of monitor and control. But you still have to write it. That is the
reason why monitoring and control processes are the fundamental of implementation.

Train your processes with confidence

After you complete all required processes you have a plan to train them to the
working group. I mean the pilot team first. The material is well prepared. You
studied and practiced and then start your training. You must get the feedback from
the trainees, analyze and make improvement. You have to be ready to train the
entire organization with confidence.

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Pick the right projects to test your processes
I am serious about this because the organization always has many types of project
to develop. One of them are rush, more stakeholders, and specific time to market.
This type of project will break the processes rules.

For this type of project, I found that the process specify that Requirement
Specification is and input to Design Specification. Design Specification is an input to
Program Specification. Program Specification is an input to coding. When executed
program get delivered to test all the input are still in processes. They cannot baseline
any documents. The review staffs did not have a chance to review any documents. It
means the review processes that the organization wrote cannot be performed. How
can you know this process is good or bad? The process audit will give the
management NC report. This report must be analyzed and management must make
decision to modify the process to comply with the real life or find out the reason why
they can not follow the process before make any decision.

When you pick the pilot project you must prepare the explanation to the team
members. To follow the processes are to improve quality and prevent rework in the
features.

I still found that some organization has a lot of potential business that the
management would like to get involved. If they did not consider what the real
purpose of the organization is and think only about the profit they will loose their
stand point. It will make the implementation team loose their confident in doing the
assign jobs.

Processes can be changed

Sometimes the staffs did not know about this so they resist following the processes.
We have to announce to everyone that it can be changed to be matched with our
real working process. The process is the helping tool to make your life easier, more
manageable and control. You will see there is Engineering Process Group (EPG)
maintain all processes and train all staffs to understand and follow the process. The
process audit group will check the process and your working and report to
management. Request changes are submitted to EPG to review and evaluate.
Change to the process will be occurred if it will comply with physical work process
and the model.

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