This book both took me by surprise and delighted me. I was surprised because I've been a frequent visitor on the author's website, which is filled with information about process improvement, software quality and related material and wasn't aware of this book. I was delighted because this book synthesizes and expands upon much of the material I'd downloaded, plus it goes deep into specifics of software process improvement to which I had not been exposed.
The book's principal theme is measuring process maturity using a framework called "Action Focused Assessment" (AFA), and using the findings from the assessment to develop a process improvement strategy. The AFA framework is a V-model. It's based on the same paradigm as the German Federal Ministry of Defense software life cycle model, but the elements are different. What makes this model type powerful and practical is the way each milestone in the early stages are directly related to milestones in the later stages of the cycle. In the AFA the model has seven layers (vision/mission objectives, policies and procedures, project management, requirements, design, coding, test), and roles (senior and middle management, project leaders and practitioners. The left side of the V, moving top to bottom represents the assessment, and the right side moving bottom to top represents the actions based on assessment findings. This ensures that each key process area defined by layers has defined roles and responsibilities for both assessment and process improvement initiatives.
While the AFA is the centerpiece of the book's theme, each chapter covers all of the key elements necessary to put the AFA framework into practice: executive sponsorship and commitment, assessment training, assessment activities, interviewing, developing findings and recommendations, making presentations and action planning for process improvement.
While the ostensible purpose of this book is to provide an assessment framework for organizations intent on pursuing CMM level 2 or above, the framework and detailed approach provided will work exceptionally well for organizations that have opted for SPICE, Bootstrap or other improvement-based goals.
Process improvement consultants will benefit the most from this book because it will give a ready-made framework for conducting assessments and developing findings and recommendations. However, this book is also an excellent roadmap for internal company initiatives to find their capability baseline from which to develop an action plan for either stepped or continuous improvement.
