Improving project processes : best practice case study

This paper describes SPICE (Structure Process Improvement for Construction Enterprises), which is a process improvement framework for construction organizations. SPICE is a five level step by step maturity framework. It assesses an organization's performance against levels of process maturity, identifies their strengths and weaknesses and highlights their improvement priorities. SPICE was developed in close collaboration with the construction industry and tested on real projects. This allowed the framework to take into account practical industrial needs. This paper provides an outline of the SPICE framework. It focuses on a best practice case study of SPICE implementation on a partnering relationship between a major client and a major contractor. The paper details the SPICE assessment and fact finding process. Based on this assessment, it identifies the strengths and weaknesses of the partnering operation and provides specific guidelines for project improvement. Main strengths of the partnering included: 1) close physical proximity of client, design and project management teams; 2) top level commitment to improve productivity; and 3) adoption of manufacturing philosophies and methods in order to deliver improvements. Main weaknesses included: 1) lack of integration between systems and processes of the partnering organizations; 2) presence of cultural and incentive differences between the partnering organizations, which led to fragmentation of the project teams; and 3) little evidence of process evaluation and improvement efforts by the teams. Based on these, some recommendations are made for future improvements

An Approach for Assessing Suitability of Agile Solutions:A Case Study

Abstract. Dynamic market situation and changing customer requirements generate more demands for the product development. Product releases should be developed and managed in short iterations answering to the rapid external changes and keeping up a high quality level. Agile practices (such as the best practices in Extreme Programming and Scrum) offer a great way of monitoring and controlling rapid product development cycles and release development. One problem in product development projects, however, is how to apply agile methods and principles as a part of the complex product development. The purpose of this paper is to describe, how Agile Assessment was conducted in a case company in order to support product development and customer support improvement. During the experiment it was found that Agile Assessment is an efficient method to clarify what agile practices are suitable for the organization’s product development and customer co-operation. Another finding was that the use of the best suitable agile practices would improve incremental development monitoring and traceability of requirements.

SPICE: a business process diagnostic tool for construction projects

The construction sector is under growing pressure to increase productivity and improve quality, most notably in reports by Latham (1994, Constructing the Team, HMSO, London) and Egan (1998, Rethinking Construction, HMSO, London). A major problem for construction companies is the lack of project predictability. One method of increasing predictability and delivering increased customer value is through the systematic management of construction processes. However, the industry has no methodological mechanism to assess process capability and prioritise process improvements. Standardized Process Improvement for Construction Enterprises (SPICE) is a research project that is attempting to develop a stepwise process improvement framework for the construction industry, utilizing experience from the software industry, and in particular the Capability Maturity Model (CMM), which has resulted in significant productivity improvements in the software industry. This paper introduces SPICE concepts and presents the results from two case studies conducted on design and build projects. These studies have provided further in-sight into the relevance and accuracy of the framework, as well as its value for the construction sector

Learning and organizational change in SPI initiatives

Explaining how organizations chance has been a central and enduring quest of management scholars and many other disciplines. In order to be successful change requires not only a new process or technology but also the engagement and participation of the people involved. In this vein the change process results in new behavior and is routinized in practical daily business life of the company. Change management provides a framework for managing the human side of these changes. In this article we present a literature review on the change management in the context of Software Process Improvement. The tra- ditional view of learning, as a “lessons learned” or post-mortem reporting activity is often apparent in SPI literature. However, learning can also be viewed as a continuous change process where specific learning cycle starts with creative conflict and ends up in formal norms and systems. Since this perspective has almost no visibility in SPI literature of past it could show a new direction to the future development of change management in SPI.peerReviewe