The continuous approach to Process Improvement

In this approach to Process improvement, you select the processes that are important to your business objectives. Since there are 22 process areas to choose from, this is usually too many to focus on when starting out. You may need to narrow your focus. For example, you may find that your competitor always releases its product before yours. You may choose to focus on improving your engineering and project management processes.

Building on this decision, you select all the Engineering process areas as a starting point: Product Integration, Requirements Development, Requirements Management, Technical Solution, Validation, and Verification. You also select Project Planning and Project Monitoring and Control.

You may at this point decide that eight process areas are still too many to focus on initially, and you decide that the requirements process is really where the problems are. Consequently, you select the Requirements Development and Requirements Management process areas to begin your improvement efforts.

Next you decide how much improvement is needed in the requirements area. Do you have any processes in place already? If you do not, your process improvement objective may be to get to capability level 1.

Do you have your requirements development and management processes in place for each project, but they are not managed processes? For example, policies, training, and tools are not implemented to support the processes. If your requirements processes are in place but there is no supporting infrastructure, your process improvement objective may be to get to capability level 2.

Do you have all your requirements development and management processes and their management in place, but each project performs these processes differently? For example, your requirements elicitation process is not performed consistently across the organization. If this is the case, your process improvement objective may be to get to capability level 3.

Do you consistently manage and perform your requirements development and management processes but do not have an objective way to control and improve these processes? If this is the case, your process improvement objective may be to get to capability level 4.

Do you want to ensure that you are selecting the right subprocesses to improve based on quantitative objectives to maximize your business? If so, your process improvement objective may be to get to capability level 5 for selected processes. In the description of each process area, remember to look for amplifications introduced by the phrases “For Hardware Engineering,” “For Systems Engineering,” and “For Software Engineering.” Use all information that has no specific markings and the material in the boxes labeled “Continuous Only.”

As you can see from this scenario, you need to understand which processes need improvement and how much you want to mature each process. This way of proceeding reflects the fundamental principle behind the continuous representation.