Software Acquisition Management Best Practices
Acquisition management practices requires a process infrastructure and supports elements essential for successful performance in a dynamic environment.
Programs are constantly seeking better ways to manage risks inherent to software-intensive systems, particularly during acquisition and development stages. This is manifested in their management and engineering activities such as acquisition planning and system acceptance. Our experience indicates the practice of acquisition management differs from program to program, even within the same organization. All other things being equal, we can differentiate successful programs from not so successful ones by the effectiveness and efficiency of their acquisition management practices.
One of the long-term goals of the SEI is to advance the state-of-practice in acquisition management among the US software community. To this end, we are preparing to systematically study various programs across the industry using the benchmarking process. We are evaluating acquisition management practices across programs and identifying "best practices", that is, ones considered to be highly effective in their native environments. We are preparing methods and tools to communicate these practices to the software acquisition community and to support their needs to selectively adapt and integrate "best practices" into their native program environments.
Benchmarking process: This task consists of developing a practice components framework (the basis for developing survey instruments, evaluating practices and establishing benchmarks), including methods and tools for data collection, analysis, and representations.
Practice Library: This task consists of developing the technology for storage, processing, and dissemination of information. Appropriate technologies such as database servers, web servers, and information retrieval, and multi-media presentation tools will be used.
Selective Adaptation and Integration: This task will provide the methods for selecting, adapting and integrating candidate practices into a program environment, including methods and tools integration and operational deployment in the native environment.
Ongoing Data Acquisition and Benchmarks: This is an on-going task where industry practice data is constantly acquired and evaluated, "best practices" identified, and benchmarks re-calibrated for higher levels of performance.
Related Web Sites
Software Program Manager's Network (SPMN)
Defense Acquisition Deskbook
For More Information
Customer Relations
Software Engineering Institute
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213-2612
Phone: 412 / 268-5800
E-mail
customer-relations@sei.cmu.edu
If you have questions or comments about the SA-CMM, send email to: sacmm@sei.cmu.edu
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