Assessment services provide you with an independent evaluation of your software development capability. An assessment service can range in type and scope from addressing your entire software development organization to a single software project. Rational also offers specially targeted assessments that focus on a single problematic aspect of software development, such as the collection of project metrics or the administration of your software assets.
Our team performs an in-depth assessment of your specific circumstances, processes, and/or development environment and gives you the objective third-party insight and recommendations you need to make sound decisions on how to move ahead.
The types of assessment services available today are:
- Software capability assessments
- Rational ClearCase administration assessment
- Metrics assessment
- Development organization transformation assessment (DOTA)
- Software quality assurance (SQA) assessment
- Project and portfolio management (PPM) implementation assessment
- Rational Build Forge deployment assessment
Software capability assessments
IBM Rational has several software capability assessment services, which one you choose depends upon the desired scope of the assessment. All our software capability assessments, however, follow the same general flow of activities, regardless of scope.
The assessment team begins the process by seeking to understand your business model and business objectives. The assessors then interview various members of your development staff; review the development environment, practices, and project artifacts; analyze the findings; formulate recommendations for improvement in terms of the expected impact on business results; and present the documented findings and recommendations to key stakeholders.
You can choose any of the following types of software capability assessments, depending upon your needs:
- One-day assessment service. Conducted and delivered in one day, this brief assessment service is designed to scan a single team's development practices to quickly identify areas for improvement.
- Single project assessment service. Assesses the practices of a single project team at a single location. It is typically conducted and delivered over the course of a week with two IBM Rational consultants.
- Distributed project assessment. Assesses geographically dispersed teams where the teams (often different companies) may be using different tool sets and processes, yet developing components of the same system. Depending upon the scope, this type of assessment can take several assessors and several weeks to complete.
- Organizational assessment. Assesses multi-project organizations. A line of business is one example, where lines of business are defined as organizational entities composed of multiple projects that share common business goals. Depending upon the scope, this type of assessment can take several assessors and several weeks to complete.
Rational ClearCase administration assessment
This assessment service consists of a set of clearly defined diagnostics and evaluations to discern the current state and areas for improvement for your Rational ClearCase environment. It includes an environment and topology analysis; procedures evaluation, including crisis recovery procedures; VOB "health check" for database integrity, database-to-pool consistency, and VOB hyperlink health; view maintenance check; performance evaluation; and a summary report of the assessment findings and recommendations.
Metrics assessment
With this assessment service, an IBM Rational consultant performs a situational analysis of your project's progress and quality measurements. Based on this analysis, the assessor provides recommendations to help you reduce the risk of schedule slippage or missing features by enabling your team to better understand the actual state of the software project throughout development.
Development organization transformation assessment (DOTA)
This modular service offering provides guidance, templates, and resources for performing development organization transformation assessments (DOTA). Use it to assess large programs, lines of business, or a development organization at an enterprise level with a focus on system engineering (including software, hardware, and infrastructure), project and program management (PPM), business integration, and subcontractor management.
Software quality assurance (SQA) assessment
This assessment provides guidance, templates, and resources for conducting a software quality assurance (SQA) assessment for your organization. You should use a SQA assessment when evaluating the quality of software development in your organization with a focus on determining your initial level of software quality to guide you to a higher level of thorough testing best practices.
Project and portfolio management (PPM) implementation assessment
This assessment provides guidance, templates, and resources for assessing your current project and portfolio management (PPM) practices. This allows an IBM Rational consultant to recommend the most effective Rational Portfolio Manager (RPM) deployment and PPM consulting services, which focus on those process areas that deliver the greatest business value to you.
Rational Build Forge deployment assessment
This assessment provides long-term mentorship and service for customers who see value in a deeper relationship with a Rational Build Forge technology team. During the assessment, an IBM technical consultant is on-site at your location for two full days per quarter to review the performance of the existing Rational Build Forge implementation, to provide product update and roadmap information, and to suggest areas for improvement in your environment.
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