CMM - Level 5 - Optimizing

Level 5 is continous inprovement stage. And has 2 KPAs:

Defect Prevention

The theme here is to identify the cause of defects and prevent them from recurring. Defect Prevention involves analyzing defects that were encountered in the past and taking specific actions to prevent the occurrence of those types of defects in the future. The defects may have been identified on other projects as well as in earlier stages or tasks of the current project. Defect prevention activities are also one mechanism for spreading lessons learned between projects.

Goals: DP activities are planned, the common causes are identified. The causes are prioritized and systematically eliminated.

The major activities performed include:

- The software project develops and maintains a plan for its defect prevention activities.
- Causal analysis meetings are conducted according to a documented procedure
Each of the teams assigned to coordinate defect prevention activities meets on a periodic basis to review and coordinate implementation of action proposals from the causal analysis meetings
- Document their rationale for decisions and provide the decision and the rationale to the submitters of the action proposals

Technology Change Management(TCM)

The purpose of Technology Change Management is to identify new technologies (i.e., tools, methods, and processes) and track them into the organization in an orderly manner.The objective is to improve software quality, increase productivity, and decrease the cycle time for product development.

The organization establishes a group (such as a software engineering process group(SEPG) or a TCM support group) that works with the software projects to introduce and evaluate new technologies and manage changes to existing technologies. Particular emphasis is placed on technology changes that are likely to improve the capability of the organization's standard software process (as described in the Organization Process Definition key process area).


Goals: Incorporation of technology changes are planned, New technologies are evaluated to determine their effect on quality and productivity and appropriate new technologies are transferred into normal practice across the organization.

The major activities performed include:

- The organization develops and maintains a plan for technology change management.
- The group responsible for the organization's TCM activities works with the software projects in identifying areas of technology change.
- Technologies are selected and acquired for the organization and software projects according to a documented procedure.
- Appropriate new technologies are then incorporated into the organization's as well as Projects's standard software process according to a documented procedure.


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