Chapter 4. Relationships Among Process Areas

In this chapter we describe the key relationships among process areas to help you see the acquirer’s view of process improvement and how process areas depend on the implementation of other process areas.

The relationships among multiple process areas, including the information and artifacts that flow from one process area to another—illustrated by the figure and descriptions in this chapter—help you to see a larger view of process implementation and improvement.

Successful process improvement initiatives must be driven by the business objectives of the organization. For example, a common business objective is to reduce the time it takes to get a product to market. The process improvement objective derived from that might be to improve the project management processes to ensure on-time delivery. Those improvements rely on best practices in the Project Planning and Project Monitoring and Control process areas.

Although we group process areas in this chapter to simplify the discussion of their relationships, process areas often interact and have an effect on one another regardless of their group, category, or level. For example, the Decision Analysis and Resolution process area (a Support process area at maturity level 3) contains specific practices that address the formal evaluation process used in the Solicitation and Supplier Agreement Development process area (a Project Management process area at maturity level 2) to select suppliers to deliver a product or service.

Being aware of the key relationships that exist among CMMI process areas will help you apply CMMI in a useful and productive way. Relationships among process areas are described in more detail in the references of each process area and specifically in the Related Process Areas section of each process area in Part Two. Refer to Chapter 2 for more information about references.

Figure 4.1 illustrates key relationships among CMMI-ACQ process areas.

Figure 4.1 Key Relationships Among Process Areas

Project Processes

The project process areas contain practices that address acquirer activities related to establishing, executing, and ensuring the transition of an acquisition project.

The project process areas of CMMI-ACQ contain the following process areas from the Project Management and Acquisition Engineering categories:

Project Management

• Project Planning (PP)

• Requirements Management (REQM)

• Solicitation and Supplier Agreement Development (SSAD)

• Agreement Management (AM)

• Project Monitoring and Control (PMC)

• Integrated Project Management (IPM)

• Risk Management (RSKM)

Acquisition Engineering

• Acquisition Requirements Development (ARD)

• Acquisition Technical Management (ATM)

• Acquisition Verification (AVER)

• Acquisition Validation (AVAL)

The Project Planning process area includes practices for determining the acquisition strategy, developing the project plan, involving stakeholders appropriately, obtaining commitment to the plan, and maintaining the plan.

Planning begins with the acquisition strategy, which provides the framework for the acquisition project and its plans. The project plan covers the project management and acquisition activities performed by the project. Other plans (e.g., plans for transition to operations and support, configuration management, verification, and measurement and analysis) from relevant stakeholders that affect the project are reviewed, and commitments with those stakeholders for their contributions to the project are established.

Once the acquisition strategy is established using Project Planning practices, the strategy is used to focus on specifying customer and contractual requirements that express customer value in Acquisition Requirements Development practices. Customer needs are established and translated into customer requirements. The set of customer requirements is prioritized and a set of contractual requirements, including design constraints, is developed.

Development of contractual requirements and operational scenarios also depends on the acquisition strategy developed using Project Planning practices. This set of contractual requirements is used in Solicitation and Supplier Agreement Development practices to select suppliers and establish a supplier agreement to acquire the product or service. The product or service is designed and implemented by the supplier consistent with the acquirer’s contractual requirements and design constraints.

Requirements are maintained using Requirements Management practices. These practices describe activities for obtaining and controlling requirement changes and ensuring that other relevant plans and data are kept current. They also describe the traceability of requirements from customer to contractual requirements and supplier agreements. Requirements Management practices interact with Acquisition Requirements Development practices. All changes to contractual requirements must be reflected in the supplier agreements established and maintained using Solicitation and Supplier Agreement Development practices.

The Solicitation and Supplier Agreement Development process area defines practices for preparing a solicitation package, selecting a capable supplier, and establishing and maintaining the supplier agreement. The acquisition strategy developed using Project Planning practices and contractual requirements developed using Acquisition Requirements Development practices are a prerequisite to prepare for Solicitation and Supplier Agreement Development practices. An agreement is developed to acquire the product or service by identifying potential suppliers, developing the solicitation package, and distributing it to the potential suppliers. The acquirer evaluates the proposed solutions and negotiates with the supplier to finalize the agreement so that both the acquirer and supplier have a mutual understanding of the agreement. This agreement is established and maintained using Solicitation and Supplier Agreement Development, but the execution of the agreement is performed using Agreement Management practices.

The acquirer uses Agreement Management practices to manage the supplier agreement by performing the acquirer activities defined in the supplier agreement, monitoring selected supplier processes, accepting the product or service, and managing supplier invoices.

After a supplier is selected and a supplier agreement is established, the acquirer continues to apply Requirements Management practices to manage customer and contractual requirements, while the selected supplier is managing the refined product and product component requirements. Using Requirements Management practices ensures that changes to requirements are reflected in project plans, activities, and work products. This cycle of changes can affect or be affected by other processes; thus, the requirements management process is a dynamic and often recursive sequence of events.

The Project Monitoring and Control process area contains practices for monitoring and controlling acquirer activities and overseeing the supplier’s project progress and performance according to project plans. The process area includes coverage of monitoring and controlling the transition to operations and support that was planned using Project Planning practices.

Project Monitoring and Control practices also cover taking corrective action. The project plan specifies the frequency of progress reviews and the measures used to monitor progress. Progress is determined primarily by comparing project status to the plan. When the actual status deviates significantly from expected values, corrective actions are taken as appropriate. These actions can include replanning, which requires using Project Planning practices.

As the acquirer’s processes improve in capability, Integrated Project Management practices are used to manage the project using a defined process tailored from the organization’s set of standard processes (Organizational Process Development). The project uses and contributes to organizational process assets, the project’s work environment is established and maintained from the organization’s work environment standards, and teams are established using the organization’s rules and guidelines. The project’s relevant stakeholders coordinate their efforts in a timely manner through the identification, negotiation, and tracking of critical dependencies and the resolution of coordination issues.

In the acquirer–supplier relationship, the need for an early and aggressive detection of risk is compounded by the complexity of projects acquiring products or services. The purpose of Risk Management is to identify and assess project risks during the project planning process and to manage these risks throughout the project.

The acquirer has a dual role: first, to assess and manage overall project risks for the duration of the project, and second, to assess and manage risks associated with the performance of the supplier. As the acquisition progresses to the selection of a supplier, the risks specific to the supplier’s technical and management approach become more important to the success of the acquisition.

Although risk identification and monitoring are covered in the Project Planning and Project Monitoring and Control process areas, using the Risk Management process area enables the acquirer to take a continuing, forward-looking approach to managing risks with activities that include identification of risk parameters, risk assessments, and risk mitigation.

Acquisition Technical Management practices are used to combine the project’s defined process and risk management activities to perform technical and interface management. This management includes activities such as managing the technical evaluation of selected supplier products and services, conducting technical reviews with the supplier, and managing selected interfaces throughout the project’s lifecycle. Acquisition Technical Management practices, Agreement Management practices, and the Project Monitoring and Control practices are all used in concert, as they all contain reviews that are conducted throughout the project.

Using Acquisition Verification practices ensures that the acquirer’s selected work products meet specified requirements. Using Acquisition Verification practices also enables the acquirer to select work products and verification methods to verify acquirer work products against specified requirements.

Acquisition Verification practices also are used to address peer reviews. Peer reviews are a proven method for removing defects early and provide valuable insight into the work products and product components being developed and maintained by the acquirer.

The acquirer uses Acquisition Validation processes to ensure that the products or services received from the supplier will fulfill the relevant stakeholders’ needs. Products and services are incrementally validated against the customer’s needs.

Validation can be performed in the operational environment or in a simulated operational environment. Coordination with the customer on the validation requirements is an important element of this process area.

The scope of the Acquisition Validation process area includes the validation of products, product components, selected intermediate work products, and processes. These validated elements can often require reverification and revalidation. Issues discovered during validation are usually resolved using Acquisition Requirements Development practices or by working with the supplier through the supplier agreement and technical reviews.

As mentioned above, Integrated Project Management processes establish a defined process and integrated plan for managing all the activities of the project. These activities include all project processes described above, from Project Planning through Acquisition Validation. The organization’s set of standard processes and other process assets provide critical guidance to projects for establishing a defined process and plan. How the organization creates and deploys such process assets for use by the whole organization, along with other forms of critical project support, is the subject of the next section.

Organizational Processes

Organizational process areas contain the cross-project activities related to defining, planning, deploying, implementing, monitoring, controlling, appraising, measuring, and improving processes.

The organizational process areas contain practices that provide the acquiring organization with a capability to develop and deploy processes and supporting assets and to document and share best practices and learning across the organization.

The three organizational process areas in CMMI-ACQ are as follows:

• Organizational Process Focus (OPF)

• Organizational Process Definition (OPD)

• Organizational Training (OT)

Organizational Process Focus practices help the acquiring organization to plan, implement, and deploy organizational process improvements based on an understanding of the current strengths and weaknesses of the organization’s processes and process assets. Candidate improvements to the organization’s processes are obtained through activities in the processes of related projects. These activities include generating process improvement proposals, measuring processes, collecting lessons learned in implementing the processes, and evaluating products and services.

Using Organizational Process Focus practices, the acquirer encourages participation of suppliers in process improvement activities. Suppliers can be involved in developing process action plans if processes that define interfaces between the acquirer and supplier are targeted for improvement.

Organizational Process Definition practices form the basis for establishing and maintaining the organization’s set of standard processes, work environment standards, rules and guidelines for the operation of teams, and other assets based on the process needs and objectives of the organization.

These other assets include descriptions of lifecycle models, process tailoring guidelines, and process related documentation and data. Projects tailor the organization’s set of standard processes to create their defined processes using Integrated Project Management practices. Experiences and work products from performing these defined processes, including measurement data, process descriptions, process artifacts, and lessons learned, are incorporated, as appropriate, into the organization’s set of standard processes and other assets.

The acquirer’s set of standard processes can also describe standard interactions with suppliers. Supplier interactions are typically characterized by the deliverables expected from suppliers, acceptance criteria applicable to those deliverables, standards (e.g., architecture and technology standards), and standard milestone and progress reviews. The acquirer defines in the supplier agreement how changes to organizational process assets that affect the supplier (e.g., standard supplier deliverables, acceptance criteria) are deployed.

The purpose of implementing Organizational Training practices is to develop the skills and knowledge of people so they can perform their roles effectively and efficiently. For example, an acquiring organization may want to develop its project managers’ capabilities in managing supplier agreements.

Using Organizational Training practices helps the acquirer identify the strategic training needs of the organization as well as the tactical training needs that are common across projects and support groups. In particular, training is created or obtained to develop the skills required to perform the organization’s set of standard processes. The main components of training include a managed training development program, documented plans, staff with appropriate knowledge, and mechanisms for measuring the effectiveness of the training program.

Support Processes

The Support process areas address acquisition project processes and can address processes that apply more generally to the organization. For example, Process and Product Quality Assurance practices can be used to provide an objective evaluation of the processes and work products described in all the process areas.

Although all Support process areas rely on other process areas for input, some Support process areas provide support functions that also help implement several generic practices.

The four Support process areas in CMMI-ACQ are as follows:

• Measurement and Analysis (MA)

• Process and Product Quality Assurance (PPQA)

• Configuration Management (CM)

• Decision Analysis and Resolution (DAR)

The Measurement and Analysis process area is related to other process areas because its practices guide projects and organizations in aligning measurement needs and objectives with a measurement approach that is used to support management information needs. The results can be used in making informed decisions and taking appropriate corrective actions.

An acquirer uses Measurement and Analysis practices to support the information needs of the organization and project. Some of this information may be needed from the acquirer, some from the supplier, and some from all parts of a project. Supplier Solicitation and Agreement Development describes how these measures are specified in the solicitation process and supplier agreement. The measurement results from the acquirer and supplier support project, supplier, and technical reviews through project monitoring and control, agreement management, and acquisition technical management.

The Process and Product Quality Assurance process area is related to all process areas because it describes specific practices for objectively evaluating performed processes and work products against applicable process descriptions, standards, and procedures, and by ensuring that issues arising from these evaluations are addressed. Process and Product Quality Assurance practices support the acquisition of high quality products and services by providing the acquirer with appropriate visibility into, and feedback on, the processes and associated work products throughout the life of the project.

The Configuration Management process area is related to all process areas because its practices describe establishing and maintaining the integrity of work products using configuration identification, configuration control, configuration status accounting, and configuration audits. The work products placed under configuration control include the products that are delivered to the customer, designated internal work products, acquired products, tools, and other items that are used in creating and describing these work products.

Examples of work products that can be placed under configuration control include plans, process descriptions, and requirements. Suppliers can play a part in any of these activities on behalf of the acquirer, so the supplier agreement should specify the configuration management roles and responsibilities of the acquirer and supplier. Configuration management of acquired products (both final and interim products) created by the suppliers requires monitoring to ensure that project requirements are met.

The Decision Analysis and Resolution process area is related to all process areas because its practices describe determining which issues should be subjected to a formal evaluation process and applying a formal evaluation process to them. A repeatable Decision Analysis and Resolution process is important for an acquirer when making the critical decisions that define and guide the acquisition process and later when critical decisions are made with the selected supplier.

High Maturity Processes

High maturity process areas describe practices that further align organizational, project, and support processes with the business objectives of the organization. These process areas describe practices at both the organizational and project level for establishing objectives for quality and process performance, monitoring variation in the organization’s and projects’ processes, evaluating the impacts of proposed changes to those processes, and systematically deploying processes across the organization. To effectively implement these practices, mature measurement and analysis processes are needed.

The acquirer achieves an effective implementation of high maturity practices by ensuring that all members of the organization collect and analyze measurements and propose and evaluate changes to processes. In other words, high maturity practices should be integrated as much as possible with the practices in other process areas.

The four high maturity process areas in CMMI-ACQ are as follows:

• Organizational Process Performance (OPP)

• Quantitative Project Management (QPM)

• Causal Analysis and Resolution (CAR)

• Organizational Performance Management (OPM)

At the organizational level, the acquirer uses the Organizational Process Performance practices to derive quantitative objectives for quality and process performance from the organization’s business objectives and the customer. Processes and subprocesses critical to achieving the quality and process performance objectives are identified along with measurements to characterize performance. Using collected measurement data, process performance models and process performance baselines are created, updated, and used to analyze process performance.

Quantitative Project Management practices describe applying statistical and other quantitative techniques to manage process performance and product quality. The project’s quality and process performance objectives are based on the objectives established by the organization. The project’s defined process is composed based, in part, on an analysis of historical process performance data. Process performance baselines and models enable the project to predict whether or not it can achieve its quality and process performance objectives. Based on the prediction, the project can adjust its defined process, subprocesses, plans, or may negotiate changes to its objectives. The project monitors process performance throughout the project and takes corrective action as needed.

In Organizational Performance Management, process performance baselines and models are analyzed to understand the organization’s ability to meet its business objectives and to derive quality and process performance objectives. Based on this understanding, the organization proactively selects and deploys incremental and innovative improvements that measurably improve the organization’s performance. The identification of promising incremental and innovative improvements should involve the participation of an empowered workforce aligned with the business values and objectives of the organization. The selection of improvements to deploy is based on a quantitative understanding of the likely benefits and predicted costs of deploying candidate improvements. The organization can also adjust business objectives and quality and process performance objectives as appropriate.

Acquirers use Causal Analysis and Resolution practices to identify causes of selected outcomes and take action to prevent negative outcomes from occurring in the future or to leverage positive outcomes. While the project’s defined processes are the initial targets for root cause analysis and action plans, effective process changes can result in process improvement proposals submitted to the organization’s set of standard processes.

Together, the high maturity processes enable the organization to achieve its quantitative objectives for quality and process performance.