Software Process Maturity –

Time to Think Out of Box

Om P Jain
L&T Infotech

NASSCOM Quality Summit 2005 1

Disclaimer

 Sharing some thoughts and ideas that are result

of my experience, random reading and informal
discussions with my colleagues and co-
professionals
 As far as possible, sources of information are
identified in the slides. If any references have
been missed inadvertently, the error is
regretted

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Agenda
 Context
 Stone Age
 Craftsman days
 Industrial revolution
 Knowledge era/ Information age
 Some thoughts
 Constraint for Quality has shifted
 SEI CMM Levels Redefined!
 Iceberg Syndrome
 Learn from Manufacturing Industry
 Software Development is like Chemical Production
 ‘Physics’ of Software Engineering
 Management Science for Software/ Knowledge Industry!
 Discussion/ Q&A

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Stone Age

 Tangible/ physical tools

 User himself produced tools/ products
 Communication  Not required
 No loss or distortion of information between user &
producer

Communication paths = 0

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Craftsman Days

 Tangible/physical tools & products

 Individual user serviced by individual craftsman
 Communication paths  One to One
 Loss or distortion of information was minimal
between user & craftsman

Communication paths between

2 Persons = 1
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Industrial Revolution

 Tangible/ physical tools & products

 Division of labor
 Many customers (market) serviced by many individuals working
as part of an organization
 Communication paths = n(n-1)/2
 Loss or distortion of information – noticeable
and at times substantial – processes developed
to overcome these problems 1

n 2
Communication paths between n
Persons = n(n-1)/2
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Knowledge Era/ Information Age

 INTANGIBLE software tools & products

 Global organizations competing for global
markets
 Cultural, language and geo-political diversity
 Virtual organizations
 Software Engineering 1
2
n
 Rapidly changing technology
3
 Changing & evolving requirements
..
 Deliveries required ‘yesterday’
..
 Limitations of software sizing methodologies..
 Shortage of skilled personnel ..

 Inadequate engineering processes ..

 … Communication paths between n Persons =

n(n-1)/2

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???

 In this context, how do you achieve the

“Software Process Maturity” that helps the
organization:
 Satisfy all stake holders
 Maintain profitability

 Retain customers and

 Capture markets?

…

…

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Constraint for Quality has shifted!

 Quality Improvement in the software production

process through CMM/ ISO etc. has hit the glass ceiling
 External environment is impacting maturity of the
production process e.g.
 paucity of skilled technical resources, Total Defect Density (D/Koc)
Total Def.
Den
Log. (Total
Def. Den)

rapid changes in technology,

12

 10
9.3
11.0
10.0

8 8.2

 constantly changing customer requirements, COQ

6

Cost Of Quality (%) % 2

 changing business priorities, 42%

41%
40%
41%
Log.
(COQ
%)
41%
0
Phase1 Phase2 Phase3 Phase4

39% 39%

high attrition of workforce,

Productivity CUT (loc/PD)

 38%
37%
36% 36%
140
130
120 121
35%

Demanding schedules
34% 100 100

 33%
Phase1 Phase2 Phase3 Phase4
80

60

Productivity Overall (loc/PD) 40

 stressful work environment … 70

60
57 55
20

0
Phase1 Phase2 Phase3 Phase4
50
47
40

30 Source: Bangalore SPIN SPI-

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SIG Phase 4 Benchmarking 9
10

0
presentation
Phase1 Phase2 Phase3 Phase4
Constraint for Quality has shifted!

 Constraint has clearly shifted The Framework Quagmire

to Quality of Management
Processes that govern the
external business environment
 MBN/ CII-EXIM/ RBN/ EFQM
Quality Awards
 Integrate ISO 9001:2000, CMMi,
PCMM, BS7799, BS 15000/eSCM,
OPM3, Balance Score Card, Six
Sigma, Maturity Continuum of
Steven Covey, Theory of
Constraints of Godratt,
Profound Knowledge of Deming
 BPMM/ B-CMM … Source: Software Productivity Consortium

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SEI CMM Levels Redefined!

 Continuously improving (Optimizing) repeatable

& predictable (Managed) processes that
leverage process knowledge at the three levels:
 Individual (Initial),
 Team (Repeatable) and
 Organization (Defined)
 Can we add the different fourth level here –
“Industry Level”
 Collaborative research
 Industry level benchmarking
 Public sharing of knowledge
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Iceberg Syndrome
 Current models address only
visible 10 to 20 % of the
processes

 Major part of the knowledge

work goes on within the brains
of engineers – can we define
processes for this 80 to 90 %
of the iceberg
 Can Steven Covey’s ‘7
Habits ...’ or Daniel
Goleman’s ‘Emotional
Intelligence’ or Thomas
Harris’ ‘I am OK You are OK’
or …. help?

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Learn from Manufacturing Industry:
Six Sigma and Lean Manufacturing
· Shigeo Shingo: “When I first heard about statistics in 1951, I firmly
believed it to be the best technique around, and it took me 26 years
to be completely free of its spell,” 1986, ZQC: Source Inspection and
the Poka-Yoke System, Productivity Press, Portland, OR, p. 54.

· Mikel Harry: "We believe that statistical knowledge is to the

information age what fossil fuel was to the industrial age. In fact, the
future of industry depends on an understanding of statistics,” 2000,
Six Sigma, Doubleday, New York, p. 24.

Quoted by Michel Baudin in his article “Six Sigma and Lean Manufacturing”
Published in Lean Directions: The E-Newsletter of Lean Manufacturing, July 2002
Copyright © 2002 by Society of Manufacturing Engineers

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Learn from Manufacturing Industry

B
A D
Lean C Procedures and methods
defining the relationship
Manufacturing’s of tasks
focus on Quality
Six Sigma
focus to
Quality
SYSTEM
People Tools and
with skills, equipment
training, and
motivation

Software Quality needs to add Lean Manufacturing approach

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Software Development is like Chemical
Production
 Software is produced more in the
minds of engineers like a
chemical product in a reactor
 It is practically impossible to
measure and control the mental
processes
 Mistake-proofing or ‘Poka-Yoke’
approach is key to software
quality

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 ‘Physics’ of Software Engineering!

 Is there a “Physics” of software engineering?

 Every other engineering discipline has laws that
describe the physical phenomena they deal with
 Software engineering deals with automation of
standardized processes, integrates them, transforms
‘As-Is’ processes to ‘To-Be’ processes
Y = f (X)
Process
Input Output
Data Data
Control
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http://www.stanford.edu/~candea/teaching/cs444a-fall-2003/index-full.html
http://www.ics.uci.edu/~emilyo/SimSE/se_rules.html (8 of 11)24/07/2005 9:43:26 AM
Management Science for Software/
Knowledge Industry!
 Industry with almost 100% workforce as graduate engineers
 Very high manpower threshold (20,000+) for stable organization
 Very low ratio of visible to invisible processes
 Only industry in which key asset/ resource walks out of the factory
premises every day without any security
 Need to evolve a new paradigm for managing software/ knowledge
workers
 Create organizations for the people & not people for the organization
 Build harmony between people, processes, technology and culture
 Create & optimize the system network view of the organization
 Recognize Quality as a technical discipline for process knowledge creation and
management

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Some Discussions/ Questions

???
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Acknowledgements
All these kind souls and many others have shown the courage to spend
their valuable time with me
 Amitava Banerjee, ISI Kolkata (Now Infosys)
 Dinesh Yawale, L&T Infotech
 G Ramesh, iiitB
 Kavindra Sharma, L&T Infotech
 Mahesh Kuruba, TCS
 Narendra Ashar, L&T Infotech (Now Patni)
 Pradeep Waychal, Patni
 Rajeev Mendiretta, Wipro
 Reshama Joshi, L&T Infotech
 Rinka Singh, Novell
 S Ramakrishnan, L&T Infotech
 Sarama Pani, MBT
 Vishu Hegde, Mindtree
 …
 …
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Thank You

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