SP 1.1 Establish Guidelines for Decision Analysis

CMMI for Development, version 1.2

4. Generic Goals and Practices, Process Areas

4.4. DECISION ANALYSIS AND RESOLUTION

SG 1 Evaluate Alternatives

SP 1.1 Establish Guidelines for Decision Analysis

Process Area	DAR
Level	3
Goal	SG 1
Practice	SP 1.1

Establish and maintain guidelines to determine which issues are subject to a formal evaluation process.

Not every decision is significant enough to require a formal evaluation process. The choice between the trivial and the truly important will be unclear without explicit guidance. Whether a decision is significant or not is dependent on the project and circumstances, and is determined by the established guidelines.

Typical guidelines for determining when to require a formal evaluation process include the following:

· When a decision is directly related to topics assessed as being of medium or high risk

· When a decision is related to changing work products under configuration management

· When a decision would cause schedule delays over a certain percentage or specific amount of time

· When a decision affects the ability to achieve project objectives

· When the costs of the formal evaluation process are reasonable when compared to the decision’s impact

· When a legal obligation exists during a solicitation

Refer to the Risk Management process area for more information about determining which issues are medium or high risk.

Examples of when to use a formal evaluation process include the following:

· On decisions involving the procurement of material when 20 percent of the material parts constitute 80 percent of the total material costs

· On design-implementation decisions when technical performance failure may cause a catastrophic failure (e.g., safety of flight item)

· On decisions with the potential to significantly reduce design risk, engineering changes, cycle time, response time, and production costs (e.g., to use lithography models to assess form and fit capability before releasing engineering drawings and production builds)

Typical Work Products

1. Guidelines for when to apply a formal evaluation process

Subpractices

1. Establish guidelines.

2. Incorporate the use of the guidelines into the defined process where appropriate.

Refer to the Integrated Project Management process area for more information about establishing the project’s defined process.

Keywords : appropriate ; configuration management ; defined process ; formal evaluation process ; objective ; process ; process area ; product ; project ; reference ; risk management ; solicitation ; subpractice