Jeff Gainer's CRITICAL PATH
Best Practices: Informal, Effective Process Improvement
By Jeff Gainer
April 15, 1998
Jeff Gainer focuses on the key concepts of best practices
Most software development organizations have continued to build
software products the same way for years without turning a critical
eye toward their management processes. Sometimes this assessment
doesn't seem necessary until some key people leave--taking with
them the qualities that made previous software development efforts
a success. The time to assess an organization's capabilities and
processes is before such a crisis, and preserve the knowledge of
the key people in the organization.
Process improvement is typically associated with "top-down"
management methods (such as standards, procedures, and
methodologies), which are handed down from management to front-line
developers.
A different, "bottom-up" approach to process improvement is to
identify the "best practices" in an organization and promote their
use, while simultaneously identifying counterproductive practices
and removing them. The concept of best practices encourages learning
from within an organization, by documenting and promoting the
practices that work well, thus preserving and passing on key
knowledge.
The concept of best practices was developed by the Airlie Council,
a task force of influential industry thinkers appointed by the
US Department of Defense’s Software Program Manager’s Network.
http://www.spmn.com
The Airlie Council has identified and
recommended over 170 "best practices" for software development
organizations connected to the US military. The nine "Principal
Best Practices" http://www.spmn.com/best_practices.html are
recommended to nearly all DOD software projects. But while the
concept of best practices has gained acceptance in the
government sector, many private sector firms are ignorant of
the concept.
The best practices approach is a highly informal method of process
improvement, and it is particularly well suited to smaller development
organizations. If you want to adopt the philosophy of best practices
in your organization, how and where do you begin?
Unfortunately, you can’t buy a set of best practices off the shelf.
A caveat: remember that what works in somebody else’s environment
won’t necessarily work in yours. If you’re looking for a starting
point for ideas for best practices, you can consult the Software
Program Manager’s Web site http://www.spmn.com and other sources
for ideas, but by its very nature, implementing any best practices
program is a unique effort. Identifying best practices is first a
process of listening and observing. And after every project, no
matter how minor, you and your staff - not just management, but the
entire staff - should pause to perform an informal "post-mortem" to
identify processes or practices which worked well--and perhaps more
importantly, to identify what didn’t work well. Be sure to ask not
only what you would do again, but also what you would never do again.
This way, you’ll learn from both your successes and your failures.
How to promote best practices? Identifying what works in your
organization is only part of the effort. Next you’ll need to actively
promote the use of your best practices. You can publish them on an
intranet, distribute hard-copy newsletters, or exchange ideas in
regular meetings. The method you choose to promote best practices
may itself help you identify a best practice in your organization’s
culture.
Known in some circles as "Jeff the Evangelist," Jeff Gainer thinks and writes about the state of information technology and process improvement from his office in Colorado, aircraft cabins, and the back seats of Lincoln Town Cars and limousines. Mr. Gainer's latest musings appear in the January edition of Cutter IT Journal, where he discusses the possibilities of "The Coming Backlash: Twilight of the Gods?"
Copyright © 1998, Jeff Gainer, All Rights Reserved.
gainerj@jeffgainer.com
Jeff Gainer's Bio
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