A powerful concept in the management of US Defense and NASA programs is the concept of a maturity assessment review. This is usually missing from commercial IT projects. I've seen it in large construction programs at sophisticated firms. In most cases the absence of this paradigm, means the progress of the project is measured by the passage of time or the consumption of resources. Even when the project is using Earned Value, the values that result from the EV calculation are simply measures of cost and schedule performance, not the increasing maturity of the product or service.
Here are some sample paragraphs describing the assessment of the maturity that results from the work effort:
- The System Requirements Review (SRR) is a multi-disciplined product and process assessment to ensure that the system under review can proceed into the System Development and Demonstration (SDD) phase, and that all system and performance requirements derived from the Capability Development Document (CDD) are defined, aligned with the external environment (systems and infrastructure), and consistent with cost (program budget), schedule (program schedule), risk, and other system constraints.
- The Preliminary Design Review (PDR) is a multi-disciplined product and process assessment to ensure that the system under review can proceed into detailed design, and can meet the stated performance requirements within cost (program budget), schedule (program schedule), risk, and other system constraints.
- The Critical Design Review (CDR) is a multi-disciplined product and process assessment to ensure that the system under review can proceed into system fabrication, demonstration, and test, and can meet the stated performance requirements within cost (program budget), schedule (program schedule), risk, and other system constraints.
- The Test Readiness Review (TRR) is a multi-disciplined product and process assessment to ensure that the subsystem, system, or systems of systems under review is ready to proceed into formal test.
- The Operational Test Readiness Review (OTRR) is a multi-disciplined product and process assessment to ensure that the system under review can proceed into Operational Test and Evaluation (OT&E) with a high probability the system will successfully complete operational testing. Successful performance during Operational Evaluation (OPEVAL) generally indicates the system being tested is suitable and effective for Fleet introduction. The decision to enter production may be based on this successful determination.
How Does This Work For Commerical Projects?
- SRR - what are the requirements for the system? Not just a list of requirements, but a system description in the form of a System Block Diagram, with nouns and verbs. This could be a sysML description.
- PDR - what does the initial design look like. This can be a process flow in some swimlane notation. Use Cases are considered requirements, but they make a good vehicle for speaking to the system behavior
- CDR - using agile or not what does the system look like when it is "done" in enough detail to have the customer confirm this is what they want in the end.
- TRR - what is the transition to production plan look like?
- OTRR - what is the transition to business plan look like?
