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Gold
Practice Website Overview
Why
was this web site launched? The intent is two-fold: (1) to provide our customers (both public and private sector), with "value added" and continuously updated information about current practices for software acquisition and development, and (2) to collect valuable information from software practitioners about the implementation of software practices and share it with the community of practitioners. We use the term "Gold Practice", instead of "best practice" because our focus is on helping our customers to make informed decisions about which practices might be well suited to their particular environment. We do not judge the value of the practice, or label it based on its historical record; we simply offer what is known about it, and share what practitioners (and the literature) report to us.
The site is designed to be a resource tool for software acquirers and developers; program managers and project managers; technical leaders and business leaders; testers, architects, and designers; contracting support personnel; and others who may be involved in acquiring, developing, and/or maintaining software components or software intensive systems. We anticipate that our visitors will be from both public and private sector, and will have a variety of perspectives. The scope of their interest may be narrow (at the project level) or broad (at the program, or even domain level). DACS recognizes that not all practices are important to all viewers, and that each viewer will approach the website with specific needs or interests in mind. We would like to learn more about you in order to better accommodate your needs and interests. Please consider becoming a member of the DACS Gold Practice Community. To register for free membership, click here.
You must be registered as a member of the "DACS Gold Practice Community" in order to contribute data and information online. Registered members are allowed to:
Non-registered users can view the web pages on the site, download documents, and download surveys for off-line submittal. Identifying information is required with all survey submittals in order to allow the DACS to validate the data prior to adding it to the data repository for analysis . Click here for further details about the registration process and the associated benefits.
In addition to the descriptive information the table contains hyperlinks to:
Note that active hyperlinks may not exist for all the scenarios for every practice. The table allows the user to easily discern, at a glance, what type of data is available and what is not. For example, the discussion forum capability exists for all named practices, but implementation data is not yet available for all practices. As participation grows and the DACS acquires more data of good quality, it will be published, and the table modified, to reflect new material.
What
are Gold Practices? As part of the Gold Practice initiative, the DACS is conducting on-going surveys to solicit information from program and project managers and software acquisition and development practitioners regarding their awareness, adoption, and perceived effectiveness of each practice. As results are analyzed, the DACS will provide access to this data so that the software community will be better able to assess the value, and plan for implementation, of these practices.
Where do the Gold Practices come from? Figure 1 summarizes the origins and evolution of the current DACS Gold Practices. It reflects the work done by Richard Turner [ Turner 2002] in identifying sources of best practice, and selecting the practices for use in his research. His review of the literature resulted in the identification of 113 "best practices" identified by various sources. Through an iterative review process, he eliminated some practices because they were actually broad policy statements or focus areas - concepts rather than "practices" - or they were close enough in name, intent, and action to be considered duplicates. From the remaining 63 practices, and using an affinity grouping technique, he created a composite set of 32 meta- practices that combined similar processes.  Figure 1: DACS Gold Practice Origins and Evolution There is not an exact mapping of the practices in each chronological layer to their successor. In some cases, one can trace the practice by name from the 2002 meta-practice all the way back to the practice identified by the Airlie Council in 1995. Both the naming and scope of the practices have evolved over time. As the illustration shows, the number of "best practices" seems to be growing over time. Because of the loose definition of the practices themselves it is not clear whether the number of distinct best practices is, in fact, increasing, or different perspectives of the same essential practice are surfacing. In either case, it is unrealistic for a program manager to implement and track progress on "hundreds" of best practices. Turner created the meta-practice construct to keep the quantity (and focus) at a manageable level. Value comes from skillfully implementing a practice, regardless of name or origin, not in determining how many variations of the practice exist.
How
Are the Gold Practices Organized? For the most part, the DACS Gold Practices are listed alphabetically by practice name, but each practice is associated with a broader category, called the DACS Focus Area. Turner assigned each meta-practice to one of four broad categories. Both groupings are shown in the following table:
The description of each practice identifies the DACS focus area followed by Turner's classification. The DACS recognizes that many different mappings are necessary to address the varying user perspectives, and that there is some natural overlapping of categories for some practices. We intend to offer more options after we hear from you. Please tell us what other types of mappings you would find useful, click here to contact us. As one scans the list of Gold Practices it is evident that some have a narrow scope, relevant only to a project level function, while others have a very broad scope and seem to be unbounded. It begs the following questions:
The answer lies in the context in which the terms are used. DACS recognizes that there are multiple interpretations of the term "practice" among the community of software practitioners, and that the term is often used interchangeably with other terms such as process, approach and methodology. In an effort to both stabilize and communicate its meaning within the boundaries of the Gold Practice initiative, the DACS defines a practice in the context of the 4 Ps - Policy, Process, Practice, and Procedure. POLICY - A documented and approved mandate or directive that dictates the use of a specific process or set of processes PROCESS - A group of related practices that are integrated to address a general category of activity, or function A process may alternately be referred to as a meta-practice PRACTICE - An actionable activity that is defined to address a specific area of risk (cost, schedule, performance, etc.) or process improvement (quality, management, etc.), a way of doing something PROCEDURE - Step-by-step instructions, guidance, rules of thumb, etc. on how to perform a specific practice
Practices may be addressed at different levels. For example, "Use configuration management on acquisition artifacts (contract documents, etc.)" may be considered a practice appropriate to acquisition process improvement, but configuration management (CM) is also one of many processes comprising software development. Within the CM process there are several effective practices, such as "Use an automated tool for maintaining version control". Typically the process is identified by a collection of key practices that should always be employed together. The Gold Practices are actually, in some cases, practice areas or processes, but we have tried to focus on the key essential activities of those areas – the practices themselves. Gold Practice Definitions - In almost every case the literature does not contain an exact or consistent "definition" of the practice. Instead, there are multiple descriptions and characterizations. The DACS has elected to loosely define a practice by presenting one or more of these statements or, in some instances, by deriving a concise statement from the body of descriptive information. The purpose is to explicitly identify the boundaries of the practice in order to better establish its scope for our readers. We are saying, "When we use this practice name, this is what we mean". Would you like us to describe other terms used on this website? Click here and tell us what is important to you.
Join the DACS Gold Practice Community A significant portion of the data and information presented on the Gold Practice website is the result of research and analysis of the literature by the DACS staff, but in order to make the site truly valuable to you, the community of practitioners, we need to establish a framework for sharing the realities of your professional experiences, for mentoring those new to the software acquisition and development world, and for collecting a body of knowledge that will bridge the gap between the authoritive bodies who are demanding that effective practices be implemented, and those practitioners who don't know how to get started. This can only be accomplished if those of you who have knowledge of the skills and practices that work take an active role in sharing that knowledge. On this website, the DACS has provided several mechanisms for contributing data and information (with or without anonymity), for sharing experiences, and for helping to shape the quality of information and services provided on the site. Becoming a member is easy and free. You simply complete the online registration form and submit it. The DACS will validate your application (by e-mail) and you will then be registered in our Gold Practice Community database. Membership will entitle you to participate in the online discussion forum, submit formal or informal case studies, participate in online surveys, and enjoy ongoing communication with the DACS. In turn, your membership benefits will include:
Click here to go to the online registration form now. |
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