1. A paper outlining suggested
practices which can help establish a
deep rooted discipline in software
development
Mahesh Shandilya
Shree Kesanakurthi
v1.0
30 March 2013

2. Introduction
In an attempt to explore some of the common areas generally overlooked by
project teams, this paper brings to light some aspects that teams can pay
attention to. Over time, these practices become habits and can increase team’s
effectiveness.
Out of the many practices addressed in the CMMI best practices and other similar
models, some simple practices are highlighted here which not only add to
effective project management but also improve maturity of the team in terms of
process discipline. The points explained here can be considered in any kind of
software development organization more so if it is CMMI appraised.
This abstract discusses simple yet effective practices that can and should be given
due importance in any development team. For simplicity of understanding, no
details of process areas or specific practice connotation are cited here.
2
Discussed below are basic
simple practices and guidelines
involving no great complexity,
just more of organized
commonsense.
Most of them requiring minor
adjustment to current practices
taken up one thing at a time.
P l a n t h e w o r k , w o r k t h e p l a n
When we take up an assignment (Project) be it short or long, bug fix activity or
time-boxed development, basic elements of planning and estimation is required.
For an organization assessed at some maturity level, systems and practices are
already defined for project teams to use after necessary tailoring.
Practices discussed - Simplest things first

3. 3
If challenges and situations like very short time-boxed iterative development are
at your peril, or situations where analysts are unable to provide all answers during
development and so on, but, the organization defined work flows / processes do
not suit the kind of work, then evolve a process / work flow based on standard
models like Kanban.
Deploy visual Kanban boards where you queue up the features / stories and move
them through the flow as work is completed. Based on successful adoption of the
model, it can be standardized to be used by other programs / projects.
Feature to
develop
Tasks in
queue
Tasks in
progress
Tasks
complete
Feature
complete
Project Estimation and schedule tracking is yet another basic practice if it is a
‘project’ we are undertaking. This gives the project leader a lot of insight on team
composition, constraints, what will unfold etc. This will strengthen his control on
the project as he/she plans it out. The project leader should discuss all aspects
with the team- including the quantitative aspect, with more facts and figures,
besides release and delivery details.
Fig: A simple Kanban board
W h a t ' s o n o u r p l a t e
What’s on our plate - It is imperative that the project lead / manager and the
entire team be aware of the artifacts used in the project and its purpose. As
emphasized in ISO standards, project teams need to understand the principle of
‘do as you say, say as you do’. Although this could be misconstrued as excessive
documentation, emphasis is given to the purpose of the document rather than
number of documents. The CMMI process areas should serve as a guideline to
map against the practices followed in the project. Standard processes provide
elaborate instructions along with tailoring to suit a project defined process.

4. 4
To o m a n y o b j e c t s t o d e a l w i t h
A general tendency is to download a file from the repository, update the contents
and save the file ignoring the file naming convention. We refer to changing the
‘configuration identity’ of a project artifact. A good practice is to follow the file
naming convention just before updating the file, for any artifact used in the
project. Similarly, it becomes very important to version a file to give it a unique
identity.
Status accounting is something
teams are familiar with; how
much do we understand and
follow it? This is about more than
just the status of configurable
items (CI). Its purpose is to assess
if configuration management is
under control.
Example, if a design spec is changed, what things got impacted and what changes
resulted due to this.
Baseline is the starting point for change control. Status accounting reports the
current configuration in caparison to the established baseline and identifies the
change authorizations for each evolution from the baseline. Status accounting is
also required to report proposed changes to the configuration as well as the
implementation status of approved changes to the configuration. SVN (or other
tools) cannot generate status accounting details or conclude the status of a CI but
tracking SVN carefully can help generate status accounting details.
Status accounting also helps to verify if changes to baselines are authorized and
change is happening in controlled manner.
Teams need to gain an understanding of version and status accounting changes if
tools are used to manage versions and changes. Critical changes need to be
tagged to specific versions in tools.
Some of the above mentioned points may seem like too much to practice,
considering tight schedules and timelines, but in reality it is almost no additional
effort, rather, puts a project execution discipline in place. Once aware, it forms
into a habit.

5. 5
O n e s t a n d a r d f o r a l l f o r e v e r. . ?
Standard set of processes and associated process tailoring alternatives should be
well understood largely by subject matter experts and senior leaders besides
project leads and project managers. Process management teams are constantly
looking for valuable inputs to improve on the organization’s standard processes
and tailoring alternatives, continually.
R e v i e w i n g o u r c o m p o s i t i o n
Project reviews are to be looked with a deeper intent to perfect our work, be it
understanding a ticket description or use case or architecture. Tracking
verification outcomes and maintaining status should be done habitually.
Verification does not end with reviewing a work product, review defects or
comments should be maintained. Effective reviews will have a definite impact on
quality of release and deliverable...What we call the shift left principle where
teams focus on unearthing most defects during the earlier phases / stages of
development so we can minimize test / release stage defects. Just noting all
review comments is a basic action.
Who said what ?
Classify the comment
Record Review comments
Artifact
forReview
Version ? Checklist
Review the
artifact
Update
the artifact
Revise
Version
Fig: Review lifecycle
Mature teams must
categorize the review
comments to make
more sense out of it.
Analyzing the defect /
comment categories
over several reviews will
guide the team’s review
effectiveness.
True Agile teams must
also perform reviews
and track review
comments in tools /
scrum worksheets and
compare with testing
defects to understand
review effectiveness.

6. 6
U n d e r s t a n d i n g m e t r i c s a n d m e a s u r e s
What is not measured is not managed. Measurement is an integral part of
process and product management and provides the information needed to make
decisions that guide product development. However, if measures and metrics are
used in the pursuit of achieving some numbers and for submissions, the resulting
process improvement efforts can sometimes lose sight of customer value,
product, project value, and practical business goals.
Measures and metrics should first be understood for its purpose and mature
teams should strive to improve their achievement each time. Senior leaders
should use metrics effectively as a yard stick to evaluate project progress in teams
rather than attribute project success to successful releases and no UAT defects.
Phase where
Defect is
detected
Phase where Defect is
Corrected
Analysis
Code
Test
Analysis Code Test Post release /
Maintenance
Cost to
Correct
Fig: Cost / effort at different stages of Defect fix
If Kanban or true Agile is used, measure factors like cycle time, bottlenecks
encountered and resolved, team velocity can be measured. Track Burndown of
stories / epics on a daily basis and sprint Burndown if some of the standard
organization metrics do not apply.
The bottom line - are we measuring what is applicable to our work and how we
are improving from our earlier performance.

7. 7
R e m i n i s c e n c e s o f t h e p a s t
To retrospect the team’s accomplishments and learning from different viewpoints
takes no more than a few minutes..it can be done over coffee. Rotating roles cuts
monotony and brings out creativity from all involved. Looking only at vital points
that made an impact either way, helps to improve. While it certainly is a good
feeling to rest on one's laurels, it is important to look from all perspectives when
many members and stakeholders are involved.
When sets of standard processes have been established for use by the
organization and its projects, teams sometimes fail to ensure that these processes
are successfully deployed to all new projects. Secondly, if these processes are not
periodically revised based on lessons learnt, talking of value and usefulness from
these processes is pointless.
Adding to the above point, process teams have to strive to make the processes
compatible and aligned with project / customer practices. It should be flexible
enough for teams to adapt the processes to their needs according to their
experience. Constant revision of practices using language & formalisms that can
be understood by practitioners, is critical.
The result can be rejection of the organization’s processes and process
improvement efforts by practitioners if attention is not given to these practices.
New
Experiences
change beliefs
New Beliefs
drive Actions
Multiple
Actions produce
Results
Positive Results
create New
Experiences
C U L T U R E O F S U S T A I N A B L E C H A N G E

8. 8
H e u r i s t i c m i n d s e t
To create awareness and infuse a quality mindset among practitioners’,
organizations can plan extended teams or focus groups / communities besides the
process and process improvement teams. These of course are not dedicated or
full time teams. Roles like Quality coordinator (internal project SQA),
Configuration Lead and Defect prevention lead must be enlivened through
forums, campaigns etc. Also the focus groups or communities – tech, non-tech
etc. should get actively involved in improvement drives and cross project
knowledge sharing. This enables the team to evolve continuously, bring out the
best practices and improve productivity.
The resources team can largely contribute to this drive as well! If any system or
practice can accelerate progress, why not foster it, the more diverse the better.
How are the skills being actually evaluated and tracked. How are trainings,
orientations, other forms of learning actually being imparted to the assets of the
organization. What is the effect from these over time. What measures are being
taken to promote their productivity, bring out technical capabilities in them which
eventually has an impact on their work. This is an important aspect to be tracked
closely. Recognition is half solution. Start here, implement one thing at a time,
keep at it with consistency.
Eventually everybody wants to improve and be part of an evolving system which
is the sum total of all experiences and everything beneath what is discussed here
is targeting better value to the customer for new and repeat, continued business.
As enabling functions, different organizational functions must coordinate with
each other for campaigns and promotions in this direction to bring in that cultural
change. Start with small initiatives and plan ahead from the learning, response
and experience.
Fig: The corporate GPS
Joint objectives Joint commitments Joint resources Joint risks

9. 9
E a s i e r s a i d t h a n d o n e . .
There is a balance to achieve across organizational, project, and individual
prerogatives that are a function of risk, maturity and other business and cultural
considerations. Care has to be taken to do what is needed to be successful in our
endeavours without exposing the organization / teams / projects to excessive risk
and at the same time, ensure that motivation never fails.
Connect all the dots
with 3 continuous lines not
going over a line twice
In summary, this article has tried to present the holistic purpose of an
organization’s process, the practices and best practice models to be adopted in
order to achieve organizational, people and practice improvements. In the
absence of such a structure, processes can seem ineffective and get awry. The
sum total of everyone's actions from all directions, coupled with taking the right
steps to alter our actions as needed, not just the goals, will positively put the
organization on the road to continual improvement and adaptable to change.