The project process areas contain practices that address acquirer activities related to establishing, executing, and transitioning an acquisition project.

The project process areas of CMMI-ACQ are as follows:

·         Project Planning (PP)

·         Acquisition Requirements Development (ARD)

·         Requirements Management (REQM)

·         Solicitation and Supplier Agreement Development (SSAD)

·         Agreement Management (AM)

·         Project Monitoring and Control (PMC)

·         Integrated Project Management (IPM)

·         Risk Management (RSKM)

·         Acquisition Technical Management (ATM)

·         Acquisition Verification (AVER)

·         Acquisition Validation (AVAL)

The Project Planning process area includes practices for determining the acquisition strategy, developing the project plan, involving stakeholders appropriately, obtaining commitment to the plan, and maintaining the plan.

Planning begins with the acquisition strategy, which provides the framework for the acquisition project and its plans. The project plan covers the project management and acquisition activities performed by the project. Other plans (e.g., plans for transition to operations and support, configuration management, verification, and measurement and analysis) from relevant stakeholders that affect the project are reviewed, and commitments with those stakeholders for their contributions to the project are established.

Once the acquisition strategy is established using Project Planning practices, the strategy is used to focus on specifying customer and contractual requirements that express customer value in Acquisition Requirements Development practices. Customer needs are established and translated into customer requirements. The set of customer requirements is prioritized and a set of contractual requirements, including design constraints, is developed.

Development of contractual requirements and operational scenarios also depends on the acquisition strategy developed using Project Planning practices. This set of contractual requirements is used in Solicitation and Supplier Agreement Development practices to select suppliers and establish a supplier agreement to acquire the product or service. The product or service is designed and implemented by the supplier consistent with the acquirer’s contractual requirements and design constraints.

Requirements are maintained using Requirements Management practices. These practices describe activities for obtaining and controlling requirement changes and ensuring that other relevant plans and data are kept current. They also describe the traceability of requirements from customer to contractual requirements and supplier agreements. Requirements Management practices interact with Acquisition Requirements Development practices. All changes to contractual requirements must be reflected in the supplier agreements established and maintained using Solicitation and Supplier Agreement Development practices.

The Solicitation and Supplier Agreement Development process area defines practices for preparing a solicitation package, selecting a capable supplier, and establishing and maintaining the supplier agreement. The acquisition strategy developed using Project Planning practices and contractual requirements developed using Acquisition Requirements Development practices are required to prepare for Solicitation and Suppler Agreement Development practices. An agreement is developed to acquire the product or service by identifying potential suppliers, developing the solicitation package, and distributing it to the potential suppliers. The acquirer evaluates the proposed solutions and negotiates with the supplier to finalize the agreement so that both the acquirer and supplier have a mutual understanding of the agreement. This agreement is established and maintained using Solicitation and Supplier Agreement Development, but the execution of the agreement is performed using Agreement Management practices.

The acquirer uses Agreement Management practices to manage the supplier agreement by performing the acquirer activities defined in the supplier agreement, monitoring selected supplier processes, accepting the product or service, and managing supplier invoices.

After a supplier is selected and a supplier agreement is established, the acquirer continues to apply Requirements Management practices to manage customer and contractual requirements, while the selected supplier is managing the refined product and product component requirements. Using Requirements Management practices ensures that changes to requirements are reflected in project plans, activities, and work products. This cycle of changes may affect or be affected by other processes; thus, the requirements management process is a dynamic and often recursive sequence of events.

The Project Monitoring and Control process area contains practices for monitoring and controlling acquirer activities and overseeing the supplier’s progress and performance according to project plans. The process area includes coverage of monitoring and controlling the transition to operations and support that was planned using Project Planning practices.

Project Monitoring and Control practices also cover taking corrective action. The project plan specifies the appropriate level of project monitoring, the frequency of progress reviews, and the measures used to monitor progress. Progress is determined primarily by comparing project status to the plan. When the actual status deviates significantly from expected values, corrective actions are taken, as appropriate. These actions may include replanning, which requires using Project Planning practices.

As the acquirer’s processes improve in capability, Integrated Project Management practices are used to manage the project using a defined process tailored from the organization’s set of standard processes (Organizational Process Development). The project uses and contributes to the organization’s process assets, the project’s work environment is established and maintained from the organization’s work environment standards, and integrated teams are established using the organization’s rules and guidelines. The project’s relevant stakeholders coordinate their efforts in a timely manner through the identification, negotiation, and tracking of critical dependencies and the resolution of coordination issues.

In the acquirer-supplier relationship, the need for an early and aggressive detection of risk is compounded by the complexity of projects acquiring products or services. The purpose of Risk Management is to identify and assess project risks during the project planning process and to manage these risks throughout the project.

The acquirer has a dual role: first, assess and manage overall project risks for the duration of the project, and second, assess and manage risks associated with the performance of the supplier. As the acquisition progresses to the selection of a supplier, the risks specific to the supplier’s technical and management approach become more important to the success of the acquisition.

Although risk identification and monitoring are covered in the Project Planning and Project Monitoring and Control process areas, using the Risk Management process area enables the acquirer to take a continuing, forward-looking approach to managing risks with activities that include identification of risk parameters, risk assessments, and risk mitigation.

Acquisition Technical Management practices are used to combine the project’s defined process and risk management activities to perform technical and interface management. This management includes activities such as managing the technical evaluation of selected supplier products and services, conducting technical reviews with the supplier, and managing selected interfaces throughout the project’s lifecycle. Acquisition Technical Management practices, Agreement Management practices, and the Project Monitoring and Control practices are all used in concert, as they all contain reviews that are conducted throughout the project.

Using Acquisition Verification practices ensures that the acquirer’s selected work products meet specified requirements. Using Acquisition Verification practices enables the acquirer to select work products and verification methods to verify acquirer work products against specified requirements.

Acquisition Verification practices also are used to address peer reviews. Peer reviews are a proven method for removing defects early and provide valuable insight into the work products and product components being developed and maintained by the acquirer.

The acquirer uses Acquisition Validation processes to ensure that the products or services received from the supplier will fulfill the relevant stakeholders’ needs. Products and services are incrementally validated against the customer’s needs.

Validation may be performed in the operational environment or in a simulated operational environment. Coordination with the customer on the validation requirements is an important element of this process area.

The scope of the Acquisition Validation process area includes the validation of products, product components, selected intermediate work products, and processes. These validated elements may often require reverification and revalidation. Issues discovered during validation are usually resolved using Acquisition Requirements Development practices or by working with the supplier through the supplier agreement and technical reviews.

As mentioned above, Integrated Project Management processes establish a defined process and integrated plan for managing all the activities of the project. These activities include all project processes described above, from Project Planning through Acquisition Validation. The organization’s set of standard processes and other process assets provide critical guidance to projects for establishing a defined process and plan. How the organization creates and deploys such process assets for use by the whole organization, along with other forms of critical project support, is the subject of the next section.