International Software Consulting Network - Managing Expert Networks
Richard Messnarz Mícheál Mac an Paul Decrinis, Ronald Fellmann,
Airchinnigh Debbie Penney
Director of ISCN Ltd. Trinity College ISCN Ltd.
Dublin, Ireland Dublin, Ireland Dublin, Ireland
Abstract. The main goal of I.S.C.N. - the International Software Consulting Network - is to set up a resource pool of experts involved in well known process improvement projects and initiatives such as ami, Bootstrap, CMM, Metkit, Pyramid, Scope, Spice, TickIT, etc. ([2], [4], [5], [6], [8], [10], [11], [12]) and to establish teams of experts for industry. This will lead to the exchange of knowledge and ideas in the process improvement field and will increase the benefits by combined use of the strengths of the different methodologies. As a quality oriented organisation ISCN [1] has established an annual conference series, to promote process improvement to industry. The first of these conferences was held in Dublin 1994, and as a result of the interest in ISCN ´94 the next conference was planned for September 1995 in Vienna.
ISCN has progressed from the ISCN ´94 seminar and is now set up as a registered company in Ireland. The co-ordination office is based in Dublin where the initial work of database compilation and standards for expert selection were implemented.
ISCN´s mission statement is described in section 1, the structure of the co-ordination office and the expert pool and services in section 2, ISCN´s work programme in section 3, the standards and procedures of the network in section 4, and the contact details and types of co-operation in section 5 of this paper.
1. ISCN´s Mission
ISCN´s Mission and Strategy. There are several methods for process assessment, measurement, and improvement, which can fit together in an overall process improvement framework. ISCN plans to encourage the combined use of such approaches and methodologies by using effective teamwork with experts from different projects and fields.
ISCN´s strategy is to establish (i) an expert forum that will discuss new ideas at ISCN´s conference series, and (ii) a resource pool which contains highly qualified experts who are interested in co-operating as team members. The members of the network are sourced internationally thus promoting transnational co-operations in the process improvement sector.
2. ISCN´s Structure
The Co-ordinating Procedures. The ISCN Co-ordination Office has established formal procedures for new membership, team selection, project co-ordination and network maintenance. Each expert´s details are stored in an Expert Skill Database (ESD) based on a standard Expert Skill Profile (ESP). Each customer describes his problems/requirements based on a standard Customer Problem/Requirements Report (CPR). The expert skill database supports the mapping of customer problem/requirements data onto expert skill data.
Qualification Procedure. ISCN members have to satisfy clearly defined requirements. Each expert´s customer references, project experience, trainer experience, publications, and skills are evaluated and checked according to a standard workflow. Experts are classified as senior consultant, consultant or junior consultant depending on their level of experience. If applicants do not satisfy all the criteria necessary their application will be rejected. This is not a permanent rejection and should their experience or skill level increase they may re-apply. This way ISCN ensures that the experts they promote are highly skilled, well qualified, experienced consultants.
ISCN´s Resource Pool. At present the ISCN resource pool contains experts with the following methodologies: ami, Bootstrap, ISO, MOOD, Scope, SEI/CMM, SPICE, and TickIT. Services which ISCN can offer to industry include also test planning and management, configuration management, object oriented design, formal methods, business planning, etc. In addition ISCN has established co-operation agreements with companies from Austria, Ireland, Finland, and US to offer their services through the ISCN network.
ISCN´s Conference Series and Expert Forum. The ISCN conference series addresses all aspects of process improvement strategies and methodologies - process analysis, process modelling, product quality evaluation, and practical process improvement. The first day is devoted to presenting improvement methodologies, while on the second day case studies are presented by industrial users to demonstrate personal experiences with the implementation of the methodologies. In the workshop all course participants have the opportunity to discuss their improvement requirements with the experts and the industrial users. To date two conferences have been organised - ISCN ´94, ESI-ISCN ´95 - the practical experiences from companies like Alcatel, Brameur, Festo, Motorola, Objectif Technologie, Process Inc., Q-Set, Siemens were presented. The papers given at the conferences are twinned - one methodology one industrial experience - this introduces the participants to the most recent methodologies and also shows how other companies have implemented them. Based on the conferences organised by ISCN an expert forum has been established. The purpose of this forum is to discuss new and recent strategies, trends, and developments in the process improvement sector. It is set up as a "talk back” facility on the internet allowing ISCN members and consultants interested in becoming ISCN members to interact with each other.
The Co-ordination Office. The co-ordination office (Fig. 2) is the focal point of ISCN Ltd, managing customers queries, evaluating new membership applications, and using the expert skill database to establish teams. The co-ordination office is the main organiser for the conference, and in future there will be a separate conference department (Fig. 1). This conference department will offer organisation services to members of the network who are planning conferences, seminars or workshops (e.g. the SPICE Symposium planned for May 1996 in Vienna).
Fig. 1: ISCN´s Organigram, 1995
Fig. 2: The Co-ordination Office, 1994
The international advisory board consists of all ISCN experts, five companies from Austria, Ireland, Finland, and U.S., together with two Leonardo partners (formerly Comett), APS Leonardo and Hibernia UETP. The advisory board members do not make decisions but provide the directors with recommendations to aid with decision making. The directors - one Irish and one Austrian - are responsible for establishing business plans, deciding on new memberships, and the development and management of new projects. The following are examples of some of the ISCN projects already carried out:-
ISCN procedure manual and workflow development
ESD Expert Skill Database development
Conference organisation manual and workflow development
IBOX Information BOX development - electronic software engineeering newspaper
NQA Network Quality Assurance manual and workflow development
Based on the resource pool and co-operation agreements with organisations, ISCN is currently able to offer the following services. We expect to enhance the portfolio of services over the coming years by including experts from other methodologies and projects such as Trillium, Perfect, etc.
3. ISCN´s Work Programme
3.1 Projects Performed in 1994
ISCN ´94 Conference. To establish a first expert forum and to evaluate the interest in a network such as ISCN we performed the ISCN ´94 conference "Practical Improvement of Softwaare Processes and Products” in May 1994 in Dublin. This project was partly funded by the EU under the Comett programme. About 80 IT managers, consultants, and researchers participated in this conference, 90% of which were from industry. We received very positive feedback for such an initiative and thus decided (i) to organise a follow-up event in Vienna in 1995, and (ii) to continue establishing a network.
ISCN Modelling Project. In order to obtain a professional network it was necessary to define workflows and procedures for new membership, team selection, project co-ordination, and network maintenance. In addition we defined ISCN´s mission statement, goals, and future structure. The outcome of this project was "The ISCN Procedure Manual” which clearly outlines the management tasks to be carried out by the co-ordinating office. Therefore ensuring that the co-ordinating processes start at a maturity level of 3, leading to a professional level of services.
Expert Skill Database Development. In parallel to the ISCN modelling project we designed and developed an Expert Skill Database (ESD) purpose designed to assign problems/requirements described in the Customer Problem/Requirements Report (CPR) to expert fields contained in the Expert Skill Profile (ESP). This allowed us to develop queries which automatically provide the co-ordination manager with a list of experts who meet the needs of the customer´s problems/requirements. We developed two types of queries: (i) a "skill query" to obtain a list of experts who satisfy the required expert fields in order to complete the job, and (ii) a restriction query which takes into account restrictive data such as native language, experience in years as a manager, consultant, engineer, publication range (national, continental, international), minimum academic degree, etc. Both queries can be combined to display experts who satisfy the expert fields and all required restrictions. These queries can also be performed separately. The query inputs can be adapted, or modified, and then re-run. This way the database represents a decision support system for the co-ordinating manager, helping to find the most appropriate expert team. The ESA software engineering standards were applied for the development of this project.
3.2 Projects Performed in 1995
Establishing the Resource Pool. After running the 1994 projects we included information about ISCN in the ESI-ISCN ´95 leaflet which was distributed in March 1995 to about 18,000 International IT managers, researchers, and consultants. We received about 80 membership requests, and more than 20 membership applications. So far the ISCN resource pool contains 25 members coming from different process improvement fields such as SEI/CMM, Bootstrap, TickIT, Scope, SPICE, etc. By the end of 1995 our aim is to have 50 members and our ultimate target is have 100 leading edge consultants.
Currently the resource pool contains 60% senior consultannts, 40% consultants, and no junior consultants. In future ISCN plans to include more junior consultants who can work under senior consultants thus reducing the overall cost to customers.
ESI-ISCN ´95 Conference. At ESI-ISCN ´Measurement and Training Based Process Improvement” the ISCN network will be presented for the first time as a legal entity with an initial resource pool offering a full range of services to industry. This conference combines European strategies (ESI, ESSI, ESPITI, Leonardo), methodologies (ami, Bootstrap, Metkit Scope, SPICE, TickIT), and industrial experience (Alcatel, CMS-British Steel, Brameur, ETNOteam, Festo, Obejctif Technologie, Process Inc., Siemens). There will be 30 presenters and we expect an attendance level of approx. 100 managers for all areas of the IT sector (industry, research and universities).
Consulting Projects. After establishing an initial resource pool ISCN started to offer services to industry. Already we have performed assessments 10 at large German organisations, establishing improvement plans, and offering other services like TickIT Training, and the GQM 4 approach for improvement planning based on the ami model. In the future we plan to establish about 15 to 20 integrated improvement teams per year. The results of these projects will be summarised in an annual report, which is made available to all ISCN members as part of their subscription.
Joint Projects and Proposals. To continue the idea of the combined use of different improvement approaches we contributed two Leonardo proposals:-
PICO. In Industry different approaches for planning process improvement and for the selection of best practice have been developed. In order for a company to remain competitive it is essential to establish effective procedures in all departments. These procedures require constant up-dating, therefore we plan to combine the experiences of the major approaches in process improvement and establish a fully integrated training package combining the strengths of the different methodologies. The courses themselves will have a configurable format consisting of a maximum of 6 modules (based on the results of recognised European projects; ami, Bootstrap, Metkit, SPICE, ISO and TickIT and the experiences of industrial users). It will then be configured by a procedure which will formally identify the skills and requirements of the attendees and select the proper set of modules based on the experience and skill data collected. This will allow the customer to mix-and-match the methodologies to suit their own specific requirements. Each module will take a minimum of half a day and a maximum of one day to perform. The project parters in these proposals are: ISCN Ltd., Leansoft Oy, Q-Set Ltd., Brameur, ami User Group, APS Leonardo, Hibernia Learning Partnership.
SPI-CONE. The objectives of the proposal are to write a software process improvement handbook, to organise a series of annual conferences and tutorials promoting new ideas and approaches in the area of software process improvement, and to establish a network of experts to offer state-of-the-art knowledge and services. The main target group for these services are International SME's.
In recent times the leading edge knowledge and new ideas for process improvement have been created in practical companies struggling with tight time-schedules, costly budgets for large software products, and ever growing competition in the marketplace. It is essential for them to improve their ability to predict and control their software production process in an attempt to survive in the market. The process improvement handbook will collect the most up-to-date knowledge from R&D projects and industrial experiences to apply their results to practice. This knowledge is captured via establishing a network of experts coming from the main R&D projects and software industry. The R&D projects behind the book will be ami, BOOTSTRAP, Metkit, SPICE and TickIT. The conferences and network will offer the possibility to capture new ideas in the improvement area at an embryonic stage and disseminate them back to industry and academia.
Company Brochure and Marketing. Based on the ISCN Procedure Manual, the conference leaflets, the resource pool, and the projects performed we started to design and produce a company brochure in August 1995. The brochure will be distributed at the ESI-ISCN ´95 conference. In the autumn we plan to distribute it to about 18,000 IT managers, researchers, and consultants, and to start email and WWW marketing in US.
IBOX Project. ISCN has recently established an WWW server and has developed an "admin 1.0” software which supports an electronic software engineering newspaper on an Internet server. This newspaper will contain strategic and current information concerning software engineering and improvement planning. It will also include a summary of all ISCN projects and the results of these projects. There are plans to set up an open discussion forum "ISCN Talk-Back” where people from all over the world will be able to interact with ISCN members via Internet. Members who are interested in home pages on ISCN´s information box will be able to buy these at a standard annual fee, with an additional fee for modifications to the page.
COM Project. The Conference Organisation Manual (COM Vers. 1.0) has been developed based on the experiences of organisating the ISCN ´94 and ESI-ISCN ´95 conferences. The COM describes a phase specific and workflow based model for organising software engineering conferences like the ISCN conference series. It also contains guidelines for cost estimation (break even point analysis) and risk estimation. In addition there are PERT plans based on the workflows identified, therefore standardising the schedules for conference organisation.
3.3 Projects Planned for 1996
To develop a CAD (Conference Administration Database) which works in a LAN and WAN
To develop a training programme which allows people interested in ISCN to get information (we send an exe file and they execute a distance learning programme)
15-20 integrated teams for industry emphasising improvement and assessment
Conference Organisation : ISCN ´96, SPICE Symposium ´96
PICO and SPI-CONE: Process improvement handbook and combined training course
Electronic software engineering newspaper, WWW and selling home pages to members, the eletronic newspaper will be co-financed by the Austrian Leonardo partner.
4. The Standards and Procedures of the Network
Defined Processes. A major goal was to start ISCN with defined processes at maturity level 3. The ISCN Procedure Manual project was based on business engineering and process modelling principles [4]. Business Engineering starts with the definition of strategic and business goals. From these goals subgoals are derived. Work flows have to be established, which as an output, produce the necessary data, conditions, or pre-conditions to be able to achieve the goals. The achievement of the goals should be verified and measured. These steps were followed when setting up the ISCN co-ordinating office.
In modelling work procedures we differentiated between data objects (a document, a form), organisational entities which execute work processes, and conditional objects which control when work processes are to be executed.
Fig. 3: Basic Modelling Objects [3]
New Membership Procedure. This procedure is applied when integrating new experts into the resource pool. The prospective expert has to contribute a standard ESP-form (Expert Skill Profile) and send it to the ISCN co-ordination office. Based on the defined membership criteria the skill profile is reviewed by the co-ordination office. The co-ordination office provides the management board with the ESP evaluation and classification based on standard evaluation checklists. The management board then decides whether to integrate the expert, and passes instructions to the ISCN co-ordination office to enter the expert´s ESP into the ESD (Expert Skill Database) and include his details in the ISCN resource pool. The co-ordination office will issue a ISCN membership certificate to the new expert, showing his status and date of incorporation. If the management board decides not to include the expert, an official letter will be sent back to the applicant stating why the membership application was not accepted. This does not disqualify the person from applying again.
Team Selection. The customer describes his problems/requirements using a standard CPR-form (Customer Problem Report). The formalised CPR is the basis for performing queries in the ESD (Expert Skill Database) and for obtaining a list of qualified ISCN consultants to solve the customer´s problem/requirements. Based on the list of experts obtained and on the customer´s CPR the experts are contacted and the project is discussed. When a team of available experts has been contacted and established they receive the following information:- the customer´s CPR, the names and the expertise of the other team members, and a proposal of how to co-operate within the team. Once this information has been provided to the experts they will contact the customer and establish work contracts. ISCN plays no part in forming the work contract between the team and the customer. Therefore allowing ISCN to remain independent and to promote each consultant equally.
Modelling Approach. For each work procedure an organisational diagram was established which illustrates all organisational entities and which data objects are exchanged between these entities (Fig. 4). Using the approach of "Levelling" each organisational entity was ticked and refined using a workflow diagram which shows which work processes have to be executed and in which sequence, and which data objects are to be used, created, modified (Fig. 5). Some work processes are so complex that it was necessary to tick and refine them more than once to obtain a more detailed work flow chart (Fig. 6). Workflow Diagrams also contain "conditions" which control if/when work processes are to be executed (Fig. 6).
Fig. 4: Organisational Diagram of the New Membership Procedure
The procedure manual clearly describes the membership criteria, differentiating between mandatory and secondary criteria. To become a junior consultant an applicant must satisfy all type A and at least 1 type C criteria (Figs. 5 and 6). To become a consultant an applicant must fulfill all type A and all type C criteria. In order to become a senior consultant an applicant must satisfy all type A, C and S criteria. The procedure manual also provides checklists and decision forms to evaluate the correct classification of the expert's data. For example, the references (project, training, publication) are cross-checked with the ticked expert fields, and if these do not correspond with each other it is not accepted as a proper reference. In addition we take into account the CRF/PRF (Customer/Project Reference Form) to evaluate if the referenced projects/trainings were successful.
Fig. 5: Workflow Diagram for the Co-ordinating Office in the New Membership Procedure
In the "Predecision" process the co-ordination office uses standard checklists and evaluation procedures:- to evaluate whether the applicant satisfies all membership criteria, to cross-check the selected expert fields and the references given, and to evaluate the customer satisfaction based on the PRF/CRFs. Once these steps have been completed an initial classification is awarded. These classifications are rejection, junior consultant, consultant, senior consultant. The first ESP evaluation and classification is provided to the management board of ISCN who have to decide whether to integrate the expert and at what classification level.
Fig. 6 shows the refinement of the work process "Predecision" decomposing it into three further work processes. Fig. 6 also contains "conditions" controlling the work flows.
Fig. 6: Levelling Concerning the Work Process ”Predecision” in Fig. 5
5. Contact Details and Types of Co-operation
If you are interested in becoming a member or if you are interested in ISCN´s services please contact the co-ordinating office.
Currently we provide three types of co-operation.
Membership of the Resource Pool. ISCN experts go through a standard qualification procedure and receive an ISCN membership certificate. Each expert is promoted to industry and will be integrated into improvement teams. The annual membership fee is 200 ECU, which includes a price reduction of 20% for conferences organised by ISCN (e.g. SPICE Symposium '96, ISCN '96), and an annual report summarising ISCN´s activities and experience from improvement projects.
To Rent Home Pages on ISCN´s Info Box. This facility is offered to all ISCN members. The aim is to get members to advertise and promote their companies and services under the umbrella of ISCN. Each product presented will be reviewed and tested by a group of at least two independent experts before insertion on the server. There is an annual subscription charge of 400 ECU for this facility. Non-ISCN members can also avail of this facility for an annual subscription charge of 800 ECU.
Organisational Co-operations. Consulting organisations whose employees are ISCN members can also use the ISCN umbrella to promote their products and services. Their services are included in the ISCN service portfolio and company brochure. This allows consulting organisations to reach a larger target market and address the correct people. This type of co-operation requires (i) that at least one management representative of the company is a certified ISCN member, and (ii) that the quality of services meet ISCN standards.
Contractual Framework. ISCN established a contractual framework which allows independent consultants and organisations to co-operate. When establishing an improvement project ISCN contacts the experts and provides them with information. This includes whether the consultant prefers (i) to work under the name of ISCN Ltd, (ii) to establish his own work contract with the customer in which case ISCN earns a provision, or (iii) to work under his own organisation´s name - if the expert is an employee and not an independent consultant - in which case ISCN also earns a provision. Each ISCN expert confirms to adhere to ISCN membership rules which define standard quality and reporting guidelines including a formal evaluation of the customer satisfaction at the end of the project.
References
[1] Biro M., Kugler H-J., Messnarz R., et. al., BOOTSTRAP and ISCN - A Current Look at a European Software Quality Network, in: The Challenge of Networking, Proceedings of the CON´93 Conference, Oldenbourg, 1993
[2] Boegh J., SCOPE - A Guide for Software Product Quality Evaluation, in: Proceedings of the ISCN ´94 Conference on Practical Improvement of Software Processes and Products, ISCN Ltd., Dublin, Ireland, 1994
[3] Chroust G., Modelle der SW Entwicklung, Oldenbourg, München 1992
[4] Debou C., ami - A New Paradigm for Software Process Improvement, in: Proceedings of the ISCN ´94 Conference on Practical Improvement of Software Processes and Products, ISCN Ltd., Dublin, Ireland, 1994
[5] Galimberti R., BOOTSTRAP Institute - Services and First Results, in: Proceedings of the ISCN ´94 Conference on Practical Improvement of Software Processes and Products, ISCN Ltd. , Dublin, Ireland, 1994
[6] Haase V., Messnarz R., Koch G., Kugler H-J., Decrinis P., BOOTSTRAP: Fine Tuning Process Assessment, IEEE Software, pp. 25-35, July 1994
[7] Haase V., Messnarz R., Cachia R.M., Software Process Improvement by Measurement, in (ed.) Mittermeir R., Shifting Paradigms in Software Engineering, pp. 32 - 41, Springer Verlag, Wien, New York, Sept. 1992
[8] Kelly M., METKIT - Approaches, Experiences and Results, in: Proceedings of the ISCN ´94 Conference on Practical Improvement of Software Processes and Products, ISCN Ltd. , Dublin, Ireland, 1994
[9] Koch G., The ESI Approach - European Strategies for Software Process and Product Improvement, in: Proceedings of the ISCN ´94 Conference on Practical Improvement of Software Processes and Products, ISCN Ltd. , Dublin, Ireland, 1994
[10] Messnarz R., Kugler H-J., BOOTSTRAP and ISO 9000: From the Software Process to Software Quality, in: Proceedings of the APSEC´94 Conference, Comput. Soc. Press of the IEEE, Tokyo, Japan 1994
[11] PYRAMID Consortium, ESPRIT Project 5425, Quantitative Management: Get a Grip on Software!, December 1991
[12] SPICE, Process Assessment Guide, Product Description, Version 1.0, ISO/IEC JTC1/SC7/WG10, September 1994
ISCN Information Request
I.S.C.N. International Software Consulting Network
Tel: +353 1 286 1583, Fax: +353 1 286 5078
email: office@iscn.ie