Work Planning (WP) (CMMI-SVC)

Planning is one of the keys to effectively managing work. The Work Planning process area involves the following activities:

• Developing the work plan
• Interacting with relevant stakeholders appropriately
• Getting commitment to the plan
• Maintaining the plan

Planning includes estimating the attributes of work products and tasks, determining the resources needed, negotiating commitments, producing a schedule, and identifying and analyzing risks. Iterating through these activities may be necessary to establish the work plan. The work plan provides the basis for performing and controlling work activities that address commitments with the customer.

The work plan is usually revised as the work progresses to address changes in requirements and commitments, inaccurate estimates, corrective actions, and process changes. Specific practices describing both planning and replanning are contained in this process area.

The term “work plan” is used throughout this process area to refer to the overall plan for controlling the work. The work plan can be a stand-alone document or be distributed across multiple documents. In either case, a coherent picture of who does what should be included. Likewise, monitoring and control can be centralized or distributed, as long as at the work group level a coherent picture of work status can be maintained.

Work groups that respond to service requests generated over time by end users may require an entire level of detailed and frequently revised plans for resource-to-task allocation and task queue management (e.g., the assignment of repair jobs in a maintenance shop). These low-level operating plans can be considered a detailed extension of the overall work plan.

For product lines and standard services, multiple sets of work activities could benefit from the practices of this process area. These activities include creating and maintaining core assets (e.g., components, tools, architectures, operating procedures, service system representations, software) and supporting their use; developing each individual service system from core assets; and orchestrating the overall effort of developing, using, and improving standard services.