Griffith UNIVERSITY Software Quality Institute An Overview of Appraisal Assistant A tool to support process assessment / appraisal Software Quality Institute.

Griffith UNIVERSITY

Software Quality Institute

An Overview of Appraisal Assistant

A tool to support process assessment / appraisal

Software Quality InstituteGriffith University

Griffith UNIVERSITYSoftware Quality Institute

Outline

• Background

• Tool description

• Mini team management

• BETA testing

Griffith UNIVERSITYSoftware Quality Institute

Background

• Goal: An easy to use program help keep track of appraisal artifacts

• Evidence based• Customizable standard model items and rating

schemes• Supports CMMI staged/continuous

representation and ISO/IEC 15504-5• Supports SCAMPI A/B/C, SPICE• Generate ISO15504 and ISO9001:2000 profile

Griffith UNIVERSITYSoftware Quality Institute

Background

• Metrics for tracking appraisal progress

• Generate reports

• Mini-team collaboration

• OS: Windows 98/SE/ME/2000/XP/ViSTA

• Used by SQI personnel in 3 CMMI and 2 SPICE assessments

Griffith UNIVERSITYSoftware Quality Institute

Tool description

• Setup the appraisal project– Process scope

• Highest capability level• Add/Remove practices

– Organization scope• Add/Remove instantiations• Relate instantiations to model practices

– Appraisal team• Separate login for each team member

Griffith UNIVERSITYSoftware Quality Institute

Tool description• Evidence based appraisal

– Collect evidence• Using spreadsheet• Importing evidence from older projects• Using evidence registry of the tool

– Directly open evidence document/URL– Map evidence to model practices– For SCAMPI A Appraisals:

• Calculate affirmation coverage in real-time using the 50% rule

Griffith UNIVERSITYSoftware Quality Institute

Bug report is mapped to 2

practices

Griffith UNIVERSITYSoftware Quality Institute

Griffith UNIVERSITYSoftware Quality Institute

SURAC is mapped to 2

practices

Griffith UNIVERSITYSoftware Quality Institute

Tool description

• Characterize practice implementation– Evidences are grouped by instantiations– Characterize the practice implementation on

instantiation and organization unit level– Support all characterization options defined in

SCAMPI v1.1 MDD– Rating scale customizable through rating

scheme editor

Griffith UNIVERSITYSoftware Quality Institute

Tool description

• Ratings and findings– Support all rating options defined in SCAMPI

v1.1 MDD– Rating scales customizable through rating

scheme editor– Automatic aggregate lower level findings and

ratings– Organization Unit ML Rating

• Staged equivalent table for continuous rep.• Process area sorted by ML for staged rep.

Griffith UNIVERSITYSoftware Quality Institute

Griffith UNIVERSITYSoftware Quality Institute

Griffith UNIVERSITYSoftware Quality Institute

Griffith UNIVERSITYSoftware Quality Institute

Griffith UNIVERSITYSoftware Quality Institute

Tool description

• Generate ISO15504 process profile– CMMI Practice characterizations, ratings and findings

are NOT converted– Evidences are grouped by process outcomes– Automatic calculate process capability level– Generate ISO15504 process profile summary report

• Generate ISO9001:2000 profile– Group evidences by quality requirements– Rate quality ISO9001 clauses/requirements

satisfaction– Document non-conformity– Auditing reports

Griffith UNIVERSITYSoftware Quality Institute

Tool description

• Export (almost) all user entered data to documents– ADS report– Strength/weakness summary– Detail finding report + charts– Goal rating profile– PIID

Griffith UNIVERSITYSoftware Quality Institute

Mini team management

• Evidence can be recorded and characterised using mini-teams– Add more evidence and interviews– Associate evidence to practice (add PII)– Disassociate parent evidence from practice (delete

PII)– Change characterization/comment PIIs

• Practice implementation can be characterised and changed by the mini-team

Griffith UNIVERSITYSoftware Quality Institute

Mini team management

• Things can NOT be done with mini team– Can not delete evidence unless parent project also

deletes it – Can not change appraisal scope (both organization

and process scope)– Can not generate mini-teams from a mini-team– Can not import ISO9001/ISO15504 profiles from a

mini-team

Griffith UNIVERSITYSoftware Quality Institute

Mini team management

• Export mini team databases– Avoid scope overlaps– Save the configuration for reuse

• Import mini team– Database record conflicts and work around– Batch import options

Griffith UNIVERSITYSoftware Quality Institute

Tool description

• CMMI standard appraisal model items– Consists of all items of

CMMI-SE/SW/IPPD/SS v1.1– One standard model supports continuous and

staged representation appraisals– Mapping tables relate CMMI model elements

to ISO12207/ISO15504-2 and ISO9001:2000– All model elements are customizable

Griffith UNIVERSITYSoftware Quality Institute

BETA testing

• Cost: Distributed free, subject to provision of feedback data– Plan is for a beta release period of two years– Tool updates every six – eight months

• BETA site: www.sqi.gu.edu.au/AppraisalAssistant• What will be available

– The Appraisal Assistant Setup package• Includes a full User Manual

– Slides for preparing the appraisal team

• What do we want to hear from you– Defect reports, suggestions– The tool usage pattern survey (appraisal project workload, etc)