People Capability Maturity Model

process area

The review of work products performed by peers during development of the work products to identify defects for removal. The term peer review is used in the CMMI Product Suite instead of the term work product inspection. (See also "work product.")

A process that accomplishes the needed work to produce work products. The specific goals of the process area are satisfied.

Program Evaluation and Review Technique

An audit conducted to verify that a configuration item, as built, conforms to the technical documentation that defines and describes it. (See also "configuration audit," "configuration management," and "functional configuration audit.")

A process that is documented by both a description and a plan. The description and plan should be coordinated, and the plan should include standards, requirements, objectives, resources, and assignments.

Project Monitoring and Control (process area)

(See "organizational policy.")

Project Planning (process area)

Process and Product Quality Assurance (process area)

In the CMMI Product Suite, activities that can be recognized as implementations of practices in a CMMI model. These activities can be mapped to one or more practices in CMMI process areas to allow a model to be useful for process improvement and process appraisal. (See also "process area," "subprocess," and "process element.")
There is a special use of the phrase the process in the statements and descriptions of the generic goals and generic practices. The process, as used in Part Two, is the process or processes that implement the process area.

A plan, usually resulting from appraisals, that documents how specific improvements targeting the weaknesses uncovered by an appraisal will be implemented.

A team that has the responsibility to develop and implement process improvement activities for an organization as documented in a process action plan.

Incremental and innovative improvements to processes and to process, product, or service technologies.

The ordering, interfaces, interdependencies, and other relationships among the process elements in a standard process. Process architecture also describes the interfaces, interdependencies, and other relationships between process elements and external processes (e.g., contract management).

A cluster of related practices in an area that, when implemented collectively, satisfies a set of goals considered important for making improvement in that area. All CMMI process areas are common to both continuous and staged representations.

Anything the organization considers useful in attaining the goals of a process area. (See also "organizational process assets.")

A collection of process asset holdings that can be used by an organization or project. (See also "organization's process asset library.")

A measurable characteristic of process capability applicable to any process.

The range of expected results that can be achieved by following a process.

The set of factors, documented in the appraisal input, that influences the judgment and comparability of appraisal ratings.
These factors include but are not limited to (a) the size of the organizational unit to be appraised; (b) the demographics of the organizational unit; (c) the application domain of the products or services; (d) the size, criticality, and complexity of the products or services; and (e) the quality characteristics of the products or services.

The act of defining and describing a process. The result of process definition is a process description. (See also "process description.")

A documented expression of a set of activities performed to achieve a given purpose.
A process description provides an operational definition of the major components of a process. The description specifies, in a complete, precise, and verifiable manner, the requirements, design, behavior, or other characteristics of a process. It also may include procedures for determining whether these provisions have been satisfied. Process descriptions can be found at the activity, project, or organizational level.

The fundamental unit of a process. A process can be defined in terms of subprocesses or process elements. A subprocess can be further decomposed into subprocesses or process elements; a process element cannot. (See also "process" and "subprocess.")
Each process element covers a closely related set of activities (e.g., estimating element and peer review element). Process elements can be portrayed using templates to be completed, abstractions to be refined, or descriptions to be modified or used. A process element can be an activity or task.

A collection of specialists who facilitate the definition, maintenance, and improvement of processes used by the organization.

A program of activities designed to improve the performance and maturity of the organization's processes, and the results of such a program.

A set of target characteristics established to guide the effort to improve an existing process in a specific, measurable way either in terms of resultant product or service characteristics (e.g., quality, performance, and conformance to standards) or in the way in which the process is executed (e.g., elimination of redundant process steps, combination of process steps, and improvement of cycle time). (See also "organization's business objectives" and "quantitative objective.")

A plan for achieving organizational process improvement objectives based on a thorough understanding of current strengths and weaknesses of the organization's processes and process assets.

A set of operations used to determine values of measures of a process and its resulting products or services for the purpose of characterizing and understanding the process. (See also "measurement.")

The person (or team) responsible for defining and maintaining a process. At the organizational level, the process owner is the person (or team) responsible for the description of a standard process; at the project level, the process owner is the person (or team) responsible for the description of the defined process. A process may therefore have multiple owners at different levels of responsibility. (See also "defined process" and "standard process.")

A measure of actual results achieved by following a process. It is characterized by both process measures (e.g., effort, cycle time, and defect removal efficiency) and product or service measures (e.g., reliability, defect density, and response time). (See also "measure.")

Making, altering, or adapting a process description for a particular end. For example, a project tailors its defined process from the organization's set of standard processes to meet objectives, constraints, and the environment of the project. (See also "defined process," "organization's set of standard processes," and "process description.")

A documented characterization of actual results achieved by following a process, which is used as a benchmark for comparing actual process performance against expected process performance. (See also "process performance.")

A description of relationships among attributes of a process and its work products that is developed from historical process-performance data and calibrated using collected process and product or service measures from the project and that are used to predict results to be achieved by following a process. (See also "measure.")

In the CMMI Product Suite, a work product that is intended for delivery to a customer or end user. The form of a product can vary in different contexts. (See also "customer," "product component," "service" and "work product.")

In the CMMI Product Suite, a work product that is a lower level component of the product. Product components are integrated to produce the product. There may be multiple levels of product components. (See also "product" and "work product.")
Throughout the process areas, where the terms product and product component are used, they are intended to include service and service component and should be interpreted in that way.

A complete specification of a product or service component, including fit, form, function, performance, and any other requirement.

The period of time, consisting of phases, that begins when a product or service is conceived and ends when the product or service is no longer available for use. Since an organization may be producing multiple products or services for multiple customers, one description of a product lifecycle may not be adequate. Therefore, the organization may define a set of approved product lifecycle models. These models are typically found in published literature and are likely to be tailored for use in an organization.
A product lifecycle could consist of the following phases: (1) concept and vision, (2) feasibility, (3) design/development, (4) production, and (5) phase out.

A group of products or services sharing a common, managed set of features that satisfy specific needs of a selected market or mission.

A refinement of customer requirements into the developers' language, making implicit requirements into explicit derived requirements. (See also "derived requirements" and "product component requirements.")
The developer uses product requirements to guide the design and building of the product or service.

(See "CMMI Product Suite.")

Processes associated with a product or service throughout one or more phases of its life (e.g., from conception through disposal), such as manufacturing and support processes.

(See "achievement profile" and "target profile.")

(1) A project. (2) A collection of related projects and the infrastructure that supports them, including objectives, methods, activities, plans, and success measures. (See also "project.")

In the CMMI Product Suite, a managed set of interrelated resources that delivers one or more products or services to a customer or end user. A project has a definite beginning (i.e., project startup) and typically operates according to a plan. Such a plan is frequently documented and specifies what is to be delivered or implemented, the resources and funds to be used, the work to be done, and a schedule for doing the work. A project can be composed of projects. (See also "project startup.")

In the CMMI Product Suite, the person responsible for planning, directing, controlling, structuring, and motivating the project. The project manager is responsible for satisfying the customer.

A plan that provides the basis for performing and controlling the project's activities, which addresses the commitments to the project's customer.
Project planning includes estimating the attributes of work products and tasks, determining the resources needed, negotiating commitments, producing a schedule, and identifying and analyzing project risks. Iterating through these activities may be necessary to establish the project plan.

What a project achieves with respect to implementing project plans, including effort, cost, schedule, and technical performance. (See also "technical performance.")

When a set of interrelated resources are directed to develop or deliver one or more products or services for a customer or end user. (See also "project.")

The integrated and defined process that is tailored from the organization's set of standard processes. (See also "defined process.")

A preliminary type, form, or instance of a product, service, product component, or service component that serves as a model for later stages or for the final, complete version of the product or service.
This model (e.g., physical, electronic, digital, and analytical) can be used for the following (and other) purposes:
- Assessing the feasibility of a new or unfamiliar technology
- Assessing or mitigating technical risk
- Validating requirements
- Demonstrating critical features
- Qualifying a product or service
- Qualifying a process
- Characterizing performance or features of the product or service
- Elucidating physical principles