Summary

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

Description

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

 

Typical guidelines for determining when to require a formal evaluation process include the following:
  • When the decision will have a significant adverse effect on cost, quality, resources, or schedule
  • When legal or supplier agreement issues must be resolved
  • When challenging or competing quality attribute requirements could significantly affect the success of the acquisition strategy or the acquirer project
  • When a decision is directly related to issues that have medium-to-high-impact 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 amount of time
  • When a decision affects the ability of the project to achieve its 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 (RSKM) (CMMI-ACQ) process area for more information about evaluating, categorizing, and prioritizing risks.


 

Examples of activities for which you may use a formal evaluation process include the following:
  • Making decisions to trade off cost, schedule, and performance requirements during an acquisition
  • Selecting, terminating, or renewing suppliers
  • Selecting training for project staff
  • Selecting a testing environment to be used for product validation
  • Determining the items to be selected for reuse in related projects
  • Selecting an approach for ongoing support (e.g., disaster recovery, service levels)


Example Work Products



  1. Guidelines for when to apply a formal evaluation process


Subpractices



1. Establish guidelines for when to use a formal evaluation process. 2. Incorporate the use of guidelines into the defined process as appropriate.

Refer to the Integrated Project Management (IPM) (CMMI-ACQ) process area for more information about establishing the project’s defined process.