Process Risks

If the software process is ill describe if analysis testing and design are conducted in an ad hoc fashion if quality is a concept that everyone agrees is important but no one acts to achieve in any tangible way then the project is at risk.   In the following questions extracted from a workshop on the assessment of software engineering practice established by Associates, Inc [PRE 95]   & R.S. Pressman the questions themselves have been adapted from the Software engineering Institute software process assessment questionnaire.

1. Does your senior management support written policy statement which emphasizes the importance of standard procedure for software development.
2. Has your company build a written description of the software process to be used on this project.
3. Are staff members willing to use it and signed up to the software process as it is documented.
4. Is the software process is used for other projects?
5. Has your organization acquired or developed a series of software engineering training courses for managers and technical staff?
6. Are published standards of software engineering gives for every software manager and software developer?
7. Have document outlines and examples been build for all deliverable describe as part of the software process?
8. Are formal methods reviews of the needs specification, design, and code conducted daily?
9. Are formal technical reviews of test cases conducted regularly and test process?
10. Are the results of each and every formal technical review documented including found resources used and errors?
11. Is there some mechanism for ensuring which work conducted on a project conforms to software engineering standards?
12. Is configuration management is used to maintain consistency between system or software needs, design, code and test cases?
13. Is a method used for controlling changes to customer needs which impact the software?
14. There is a documented statement of work software needs specification and a software development plan for each subcontract?
15. Is a procedure is followed for reviewing and tracking the performance of subcontractors?