Summary

Establish and maintain the organization’s measurement repository.

Description

Refer to the Use Organizational Process Assets for Planning Project Activities specific practice in the Integrated Project Management (IPM) (CMMI-ACQ) process area for more information about the use of the organization’s measurement repository in planning project activities.


The repository contains both product and process measures that are related to the organization’s set of standard processes. It also contains or refers to information needed to understand and interpret measures and to assess them for reasonableness and applicability. For example, the definitions of measures are used to compare similar measures from different processes.

Standard measures that must be collected from the supplier are included as requirements in standard supplier agreements and can appear in the organization’s measurement repository.

Example Work Products



1. Definition of the common set of product and process measures for the organization’s set of standard processes

2. Design of the organization’s measurement repository

3. Organization’s measurement repository (i.e., the repository structure, support environment)

4. Organization’s measurement data

Subpractices



1. Determine the organization’s needs for storing, retrieving, and analyzing measurements.

2. Define a common set of process and product measures for the organization’s set of standard processes.

Measures in the common set are selected for their ability to provide visibility into processes critical to achieving business objectives and to focus on process elements significantly impacting cost, schedule, and performance within a project and across the organization. The common set of measures can vary for different standard processes.

Measures defined include the ones related to agreement management, some of which may need to be collected from suppliers.

Operational definitions for measures specify procedures for collecting valid data and the point in the process where data will be collected.



3. Design and implement the measurement repository.

Functions of the measurement repository include the following:

  • Supporting effective comparison and interpretation of measurement data among projects
  • Providing sufficient context to allow a new project to quickly identify and access data in the repository for similar projects
  • Enabling projects to improve the accuracy of their estimates by using their own and other projects’ historical data
  • Aiding in the understanding of process performance
  • Supporting potential statistical management of processes or subprocesses, as needed



4. Specify procedures for storing, updating, and retrieving measures.

Refer to the Measurement and Analysis (MA) (CMMI-ACQ) process area for more information about specifying data collection and storage procedures.



5. Conduct peer reviews on definitions of the common set of measures and procedures for storing, updating, and retrieving measures.

Refer to the Acquisition Verification (AVER) (CMMI-ACQ) process area for more information about performing peer reviews.



6. Enter specified measures into the repository.

Refer to the Measurement and Analysis process area for more information about specifying measures.



7. Make the contents of the measurement repository available for use by the organization and projects as appropriate.

8. Revise the measurement repository, the common set of measures, and procedures as the organization’s needs change.

 

Examples of when the common set of measures may need to be revised include the following:
  • New processes are added
  • Processes are revised and new measures are needed
  • Finer granularity of data is required
  • Greater visibility into the process is required
  • Measures are retired