Espire Quantitative Process Management (QPM) involves establishing goals for the performance of the project's defined software process, taking measurements of the process performance, analyzing these measurements, and making adjustments to maintain process performance within acceptable limits.
At Espire, when the process performance is stabilized within acceptable limits, the project's defined software process, the associated measurements, and the acceptable limits for the measurements are established as a baseline and used to control process performance quantitatively.
At Espire all the QPM activities are planned. The process performance of the project's defined software process is controlled quantitatively. The process capability of our standard software process is known in quantitative terms.
Espire's metrics management process ensures that the project's performance is monitored and necessary corrective/preventive actions are taken on time. All relevant data for estimation, requirement changes, risks, lessons learnt and the associated metrics are stored in a process database, which readily gives these details to the projects across the organization. The Software Process Engineering Group (SEPG) defines and sets up metrics goals for the organization. Project performance is continuously monitored against these goals. Following is a sampling of some of the metrics, which are prepared and analyzed for all projects undertaken by Espire.
SEPG
Analysis of process and product data
Establishment of baselines
QPM/SQM tool support
Senior and Project Management
Setting of quantitative process and product goals
Review and oversight
Projects
Creation of QPM and SQM plans
Implementation of those plans
Software Quality Assurance (SQA)
Auditing of QPM/SQM activities
These metrics are also used by the Senior Management for reviewing and revising Espire's process baseline. Espire management is able to get data for evaluation of project performance with respect to product quality, accuracy of schedule and effort estimates, effectiveness of development process, customer and business needs.
By using Quantitative Process Management techniques for measuring and analyzing variations in the production or service delivery process, Espire knows when to take corrective action and when to simply leave the process alone, thereby managing operational risks in a cost-effective manner.