Benchmark QChain team is doing an excellent job for the last 6 months in making the employees to understand the benefit of quality and processes. QChain team through its monthly flier publishes salient features of Benchmark’s process initiatives, latest happenings in the quality process, updates on CMMI journey, and also related to quality and processes.

The entire team at Benchmark follows the standards to deliver quality software products. By adopting and following these standards Benchmark have been successful in performing on-time delivery of products that are bug free and robust.

• Kick start a new project
  
• To have a discussion about future projects
  
• To further strengthen the relationship between the two organizations

The President spent a substantial part of his time explaining the requirements for his immediate and future projects. He showed a keen interest in technology & quality practices followed by the Organization and team working on his projects in particular. He was also very enthusiastic to understand and discuss the new technologies and the benefits of using them in his new projects.

The purpose of his visit gets summarized in his statement:

“All these days I was contacting you people through phone and email, and I wanted to meet each one of you in person before starting next venture. You had done a great job……….”

The employees of Benchmark have always shown eagerness to learn and explore the latest technology and subsequently apply their knowledge in the projects so that it benefits the organization’s clients. TCD is engaged in continuous research on new technologies & technology updates, simultaneously educating the technical team on how to use the latest technology. The division also intends to study and explore various reusable components that drastically reduce the development time, improve presentation and performance of the work. Benchmark experts have decided to come up with monthly articles based on their findings.

1. What is CMMI?

CMMI stands for Capability Maturity Model Integrated and it is an upgraded version of CMM process framework.
CMMI comes from the same university SEI and is evolved based on many process frameworks like CMM and suggestions from software community.

2. Where are we currently in these initiatives?

We are currently defining the first set of processes towards these models and believe it or not, our processes shall directly be compliant to the level-4 of CMMI. We would be training all employees in the coming months on these processes.

3. Oh! This model sound pretty rich. Will they be an overload?

This model is definitely rich and meaty in content. In contrast to CMM, these extend to all functions inside an enterprise and facilitates an overall process improvement Overload – definitely not.

We will absorb the process frameworks, but build a simple neat solution for Benchmark Softec premise.

4. To start with, let us focus on importance of Project Planning as we are going to see some projects getting kicked off shortly.

PM Planning process also known as Concurrent planning makes projects:

• Predictable Repeatable
  
• Improvable

5. What is concurrent planning?

Concurrent planning is a process of allowing the team responsible to execute the project to develop the detailed project plan

• Consists of defining, planning and agreeing to:
        What we are doing
        Who, when, and how are we doing it
  
  
• Write down every assumption, risk, issue, constraint, and action item on flip charts and place them on the walls

6. Reasons for Concurrent planning

• Obtain a better understanding of the objectives
  
• Gain team buy-in –A major key to project success
  
• Eliminates or reduces uncertainty
  
• Team building –Team building is an inherent part of the concurrent planning process and another major key to project success
  
• Starting the project off correctly increases the chances of success
  

7. Steps in concurrent Planning

• Step 0: Pre planning - Generate the draft project objective (scope)
  
• Step 1: Finalize project scope
  
• Step 2: Develop project strategy
  
• Step 3: Develop the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
  
• Step 4: Validate the WBS
  
• Step 5: Team members complete and review Roles and Responsibilities forms
  
• Step 6: Complete task tags required for each deliverable
  
• Step 7: Deliverable owners review task tags for completion and sanity check
  
• Step 8: Network tasks by their precedence relationship
  
• Step 9: Network diagram by placing tasks on a wall timeline chart to resolve missing or invalid task links
  
• Step 10: Disposition all items recorded on the flip charts
  –Risk and action item logs
  
• Step 11: Perform initial project risk review
  –ID major risks and develop initial mitigation plans
  
• Step 12: Input tasks into MS Project to generate schedule and review completed schedule as a team