Process Improvement

Question 1

**(13) **The 1990’s “Bootstrap project” (Haase, Kuvaja, et al.), which uses the SEI’s maturity levels, had the goal of addressing a particular shortcoming of the SEI process maturity model. What specific shortcoming did it attempt to address?

Answer 1

It had the goal of extending and adapting the SEI maturity model to make it applicable across a wider range of companies (i.e., more applicable to companies that are NOT US defense contractors).

Question 2

(13-SC)What, according to Sommerville, “is likely to be the most cost-effective process improvement strategy” for small to medium-sized projects

Answer 2

Adopting agile development practices.

Other Wrong ones:

• Using the GQM approach.
• Validating requirements to ensure that the resulting product will perform as intended in the user’s environment, using multiple techniques as appropriate.
• Performing causal analysis of selected defects and other problems and proposing actions to address them.
• Establishing and maintaining an organizational policy for planning and performing the project planning process.
• Employing a process management and maturity-based approach.
• Adopting plan-driven development practices.

Question 3

(13,11,10,09-T/F-CMMI) The CMMI “Defined” level of maturity focuses on organizational standardization and deployment of processes. Each project has a managed process that is adapted to the project requirements. Process assets and process measurements must be collected and used for future process improvements.

Answer 3

TRUE

Question 4

**(13,11,10,09-T/F-CMMI) ****CMMI assessments involve directly examining the processes employed during one randomly selected on-going project and rating these on a six-point scale

Answer 4

FALSE

Question 5

(13,11,10,09-T/F-CMMI) “Institutionalization of good practice” requires introducing process control using statistical and other quantitative techniques, regardless of maturity level

Answer 5

FALSE

Question 6

**(13,11,10,09-T/F-CMMI) **In contrast to the continuous model, the staged CMMI permits discretion and flexibility in improving specific process areas, while still allowing companies to work within the CMMI improvement framework

Answer 6

FALSE

Question 7

**(13,11,10,09-T/F-CMMI) **The staged CMMI model is used to assess the processes employed in specific software development stages, while the continuous model is used to measure the maturity of an organization’s software processes as a continuous whole

Answer 7

FALSE

Question 8

**(13,11,10,09-T/F-CMMI) **The staged CMMI model allows an organization’s process capability to be assessed and assigned a maturity level from 1 to 5.

Answer 8

TRUE

Question 9

**(13,11,10,09-T/F-CMMI) **The result of a staged CMMI assessment is a capability profile showing each process area and its associated capability assessment

Answer 9

FALSE

Question 10

(13,11,10,09-T/F-CMMI) Predecessors of the CMMI process improvement framework include the SEI’s Software CMM, the People CMM, and the Systems Engineering CMM

Answer 10

TRUE

Question 11

(13,11,10,09-T/F-CMMI) A CMMI assessment involves examining software processes in an organization and rating them on a six-point scale that assigns a level of maturity to each process area.

Answer 11

TRUE

Question 12

(13,11,10,09-T/F-CMMI) The CMMI model identifies recommended practces within a process area that may be used, but these are not obligatory

Answer 12

TRUE

Question 13

(13,11,10,09-T/F-CMMI) CMMI generic goals and practices are associated with the institutionalization of good practice rather than being technical in nature

Answer 13

TRUE

Question 14

(13,11,10,09-T/F-CMMI) *CMMI generic goals and practices are NOT technical but are associated with the institutionalization of good practice.

Answer 14

TRUE

Question 15

**(13,11,10,09-T/F-CMMI) **The result of a continuous CMMI model assessment is a capability profile showing each process area and its associated process capability assessment.

Answer 15

TRUE

Question 16

(13,11,10,09-T/F-CMMI) The continuous CMMI rates each process area and assigns a capability assessment level from 1 to 6 to each

Answer 16

TRUE

Question 17

(13,11,10,09-T/F-CMMI) The CMMI identifies specific recommended practices that are associated with each of 24 process areas relevant to software process capability and improvement.

Answer 17

TRUE

Question 18

(13,11,10,09-T/F-CMMI) The CMMI identifies specific obligatory practices that are associated with each of 24 process areas relevant to software process capability and improvement

Answer 18

FALSE

Question 19

(13,11,09-SC) **two common measures of software product reliability are “mean time to system failure” and “probability of no system failure in a specified time interval”. Based on Sommerville’s definition of process reliability, which one of the following would be the most appropriate measure of this process attribute?

Answer 19

Probability that a process error can be avoided or trapped before it results in a product error

Other Wrong:

• Probability that the process can continue in spite of a process error
• Mean development time to the discovery of a process error
• Mean time required for the process to evolve in order to reflect changing organizational requirements or identified process improvements
• Probability of no process error in a specified development time interval

Question 20

(12-QA)for small projects, where there are only a few team members, sophisticated development tools are particularly important, but that paradoxically, such tools are less important in large projects. Briefly summarize his explanation for this.

Answer 20

In large projects, team members spend a smaller proportion of their time in development activities (supported by development tools) and more time communicating (with one another) and understanding other parts of the system. Development tools, Sommerville argues, make no difference to this

Question 21

(12, QA)examples of “software process attributes” that may be targets for improvement (understandability, standardization, visibility, measurability, supportability, acceptability, reliability, robustness, maintainability, and rapidity), but notes that it is not possible to make process improvements that optimize all process attributes simultaneously. To illustrate this point, he cites three specific examples of “inverse relationships” that exist among the ten attributes listed. Briefly describe and explain TWO of the THREE specific examples he cites

Answer 21

• rapidity vs. visibility: making a process visible requires the people involved to produce info about the process itself; this may slow down software production because of the time it takes to produce these documents.
• maintainability, standardization vs. acceptability: To make a process more maintainable, you may have to adopt procedures and tools that reflect broader organizational practice and that are used in different parts of the company; such standardization may conflict with non-standard procedures and tools introduced to support locally preferred ways of working. The result can be a reduction in process acceptability.

Question 22

Understandability

Answer 22

Is the process explicitly defined and easy to understand?

Question 23

Standardization

Answer 23

Is the process based on a standard generic process? Is the same process used in all parts of a company?

Question 24

Visibility

Answer 24

Do process activities culminate in clear results and is the progress being made visible externally?

Question 25

Supportability

Answer 25

Can CASE tools be used to support process activities?

Question 26

Measurability

Answer 26

Does the process include data collection or other activities that allow process or product characteristics to be measured?

Question 27

Acceptability

Answer 27

Is the process acceptable and usable by engineers responsible for producing the product (as well as others…)?

Question 28

Reliability

Answer 28

Can process errors be avoided or trapped before they result in product errors?

Question 29

Robustness

Answer 29

Can the process continue despite unexpected problems?

Question 30

Maintainability

Answer 30

Can the process evolve to reflect changing organizational requirements or to make process improvements?

Question 31

Rapidity

Answer 31

How fast can the process be completed?

Question 32

(11,SC)“Humphrey (1988), in his seminal book on process management, states:

“W.E. Deming, in his work with the Japanese industry after World War II, applied the concepts of statistical process control to industry. While there are important differences, these concepts are just as applicable to software as they are to automobiles, cameras, wristwatches and steel.”

Which ONE of the following best describes Sommerville’s position in this regard?

Answer 32

Sommerville disagrees with Humphrey because software quality is not influenced by its manufacturing process but by its design process, where people’s skill and experience are significant

Other Wrong:

• Sommerville disagrees with Humphrey because irrespective of process, if a software project has an inadequate budget or is planned with an unrealistic delivery schedule, product quality will be affected.
• Sommerville only partially agrees with Humphrey because it is not usually possible to make process improvements that can optimize all process attributes simultaneously in software engineering.
• Sommerville agrees with Humphrey because measuring the number of product defects allows process modifications that decrease the chances of new defects occurring and increase the chances of detecting those that do occur.
• Sommerville fully agrees with Humphrey that results from manufacturing engineering can be transferred to software engineering because the process/product relationship is obvious in both contexts

Question 33

(10-QA) Briefly describe the three stages of the generic process improvement cycle. (A sentence or two describing the basic activities associated with each stage is sufficient.)

Answer 33

• Process measurement, in which attributes of the current process are measured. This provides a baseline for assessing improvements.
• Process analysis, in which bottlenecks, weaknesses, and changes aimed at improving measures are identified.
• Process change, in which changes (driven by measurable goals) are introduced

Question 34

(10-QA) two general process change problems, one of which is related to what he calls “change persistence.” Briefly describe: (a) the problem he identifies in connection with “change persistence”, (b) the circumstances under which it is “particularly likely” to occur, and (c) the approach that the CMMI model “argues strongly for” to counter it.

Answer 34

• The problem is that of process recidivism – changes being introduced and then subsequently discarded.
• Sommerville notes that this is particularly likely if the changes have not been universally adopted and the full benefits of the change have not yet been realized (e.g., when proposed or espoused by a single “evangelist”).
• The strategy recommended is “institutionalization” of the process change, whereby the change is not dependent on individual champions but instead becomes “standard practice” with company-wide support and training.

Question 35

(09-QA) Briefly describe the circumstances and issues that led to SEI’s Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) project in 2001

Answer 35

The SEI developed the influential 5-level Software Capability Maturity Model (CMM) in the early ’90’s. This was followed by the development of more specialized CMMs (e.g., the Systems Engineering CMM, the People CMM, etc.), each of which had its own structure, terms, and ways of measuring maturity. This caused confusion, especially when using more than one model at a time, since they were difficult to integrate into a combined improvement program

Question 36

(09-QA) How, specifically, did CMMI address these circumstances and issues?

Answer 36

In response to these circumstances and issues, the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) project was begun in 2001 to: build an initial set of integrated models, improve best practices from existing CMM models, establish a framework to enable integration of future models, and create an associated set of appraisal and training products

Question 37

(09-QA) In addition to a 5-level “staged model” expressed in terms of capability levels as used in the original CMM, CMMI introduced a new “continuous model”. Briefly describe the form of assessment afforded by the continuous model and its principal advantage to organizations over the staged model

Answer 37

• The continuous model affords assessments on a process-area-by process-area basis. They are based on a set of values showing an organization’s maturity for each process or process group as opposed to the staged model’s single value.
• The principle advantage is that organizations can pick and choose processes to improve according to their own needs and requirements. This allows more discretion and flexibility.

Question 38

(08-QA) What is causal analysis and what is its purpose?

Answer 38

identifying the causes of errors in order to effect process changes to eliminate future occurrences of those errors

Question 39

(08,07-QA) What is the SEI, who sponsors it, and what is its primary mission?

Answer 39

The Software Engineering Institute (SEI) is a DoD-funded organization (established in 1984 at CMU) to assess and improve the capabilities of the US software industry

Question 40

(08-QA)The SEI’s CMMI framework supports both staged and continuous representations. Briefly compare and contrast the structure, nature, and intended use of these representations.

Answer 40

The continuous representation enables comparisons across and among organizations on a process-area-by-process-area basis; the staged representation provides a single maturity rating that summarizes appraisal results over all process areas

Question 41

**(07-QA) **process improvement should be viewed as a cyclical activity involving three principal stages. Briefly describe each of the stages.

Answer 41

• Measurement: attributes of the current process are measured. (Provides a baseline for assessing improvements.)
• Analysis: bottlenecks and weaknesses are identified; changes aimed at improving measures are identified.
• Change: changes are introduced.

Question 42

(07-QA) What are CMMs and what are they used for?

Answer 42

A Capability Maturity Model” (CMM) is a reference model used to assess the extent to which an organization’s processes follow best(i.e., “mature”) practice in a specified discipline

Question 43

(07-QA) Briefly describe the scope and structure of SEI’s CMMI framework. (What disciplines or “bodies of knowledge” are currently modeled and what two basic instantiations or “representations” do the models take?)

Answer 43

The Capability Maturity Model Integrated (CMMI) framework is comprised of an integrated set of CMMs currently spanning the disciplines (“bodies of knowledge”) of Systems Engineering (SE), Software Engineering (SW), Integrated Product and Process Development (IPPD), and Supplier Sourcing (SS). Each model has both a continuous and a staged representation (instantiation).

Question 44

(07-QA) How do the two CMMI model representations differ in terms of the nature of the maturity appraisal generated?

Answer 44

The continuous representation enables comparisons across and among organizations on a process-area-by-process-area basis; the staged representation provides a single maturity rating that summarizes appraisal results over all process areas