Consulting Services

You want to improve your development and service processes and their results? Independent of any model you want the best solution for any individual situation? Or you think about introducing one of the common reference models in your organization and need support and consulting? Perhaps you have already decided to work according to a specific model and need support and consulting to implement that decision?

In either of these cases, I will be happy to support and accompany you with these tasks.

My philosophy:

• Even though these pages talk a lot about various reference models on process and quality management: the focus always lies on the benefit for the organization, not the conformance to the reference model. These models have been evaluated for years and will be useful checklists in most cases to verify that an organization has thought of all important aspects, but that does not mean that everything must be implemented in full.
• Processes should be designed by the same people that will implement these processes. In most cases, these people know best where the difficulties lie, and of course they will be more willing to comply to a rule that they helped to define as compared to a rule defined "from above". The task of a consultant or specialized process personnel is to support, to ask the right questions and to anticipate and point out relevant difficulties.
• Once any rule has been agreed and introduced, it is mandatory. It is better to define a few good rules which are then taken seriously, than to define a large number of great processes that are evaded or ignored consistently.

IT processes and quality management

The focus of my consulting is to support organizations in designing, controlling (IT governance) and improving their IT and service processes and in quality management.

Depending on their need this task is aligned with one of the models and methods below, or based on the general principles and methods of process and quality management without reference to any specific model.

IT Governance

Using IT successfully increasingly requires appropriate IT governance. Core IT governance tasks include:

• Clearly define the objectives of using IT and communicate these objectives. This may or may not involve the application of some reference model.
• Design IT such that these objectives will be achieved.
• Create a transparent environment so that (insufficient) progress it is always clearly visible.

Of course I will be happy to support you in these tasks, in particular the process-oriented parts.

Measurement, Evaluation and Analysis of Processes and their Quality

There are a number of approaches to measure, evaluate and analyse processes, in particular processes which are repeated often such as service and IT service management processes. The objective of these approaches is to better understand the processes and to identify improvement needs and potentials. In this context I can offer the following:

• Measuring and evaluating process quality using the model Gokyo Ri which was developed by me and which helps to turn the abstract term of process quality into specific, measurable criteria.
• Analysis of processes using process mining which is related to data mining but concentrates specifically on the evaluation of process data and helps to evaluate conformance to defined processes, to identify and resolve bottle necks and other problems in performing the process, or to derive a (not yet existing) process definition from the actual process implementation.

IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL)

ITIL is the de facto standard for IT Service Managements and therefore complements CMMI, with many interfaces such as between problem management according to ITIL and requirements management according to CMMI. It is therefore useful for many organizations to combine using CMMI-DEV for development with ITIL for IT service management, as e.g. worked out in a joint paper with two colleagues.

I can therefore offer to support you in introducing or improving ITIL-based IT service management, in particular the design of the interfaces between CMMI-based development and ITIL-based IT Service Management. Also have a look at the process quality model Gokyo Ri that I developed which can help to measure and evaluate the quality of e.g. IT service management processes.

Das V-Modell XT wurde im Februar 2005 verabschiedet als Vorgehensmodell für die Durchführung von Entwicklungsprojekten. Das V-Modell XT mit seinen vielen Anleitungen und Vorlagen kann Ihnen als Hilfsmittel bei der erfolgreichen und systematischen Durchführung von Entwicklungsprojekten dienen.

Vor allem im öffentlichen Dienst gibt es oft die Forderung, dass beauftragte Entwicklungsprojekte entsprechend dem V-Modell XT durchgeführt werden sollen. Auf Basis meiner langjährigen Erfahrungen in der Nutzung von Vorgehensmodellen und meiner Zertifizierung als V-Modell XT Prozessingenieur (PING) kann ich Sie sowohl auf Auftragnehmer- als auch auf Auftraggeberseite dabei unterstützen, diese Anforderung umzusetzen.

V-Modell XT

V-Modell XT is a process model for planning and executing projects which was initiated by the German government and can be a valuable tool to set a successful development projects.

It is required to be used for many large government projects, but both customer and contractor often find it difficult to implement this requirement effectively and efficiently. Based on my long-term experience in implementing software process models and my certification as a V-Modell XT process engineer (PING), I can support both sides with this task.

Reviews

Reviews are one of the most important quality assurance methods since they help to identify problems and bugs early on, and furthermore help to identify many bugs that could not be identified using testing along.

As a founding member of ReviewConsult I can help you to introduce reviews in your organization. Furthermore, I can take part in your reviews of important documents such as requirements specifications, project plans, process documentation, taking the role of a reviewer or alternatively moderate the review.