Experiences and results from tailoring and deploying a large process standard in a company

With increasing process maturity of the software-developing companies, an increasing interest in standardized processes can be observed. Company-specific standards are of-ten derived from reference standards such as ISO/IEC 12207 or the German V-Modell XT. Developing and deploying a (new) company-wide standard is a challenging task with many obstacles. Many efforts in defining and deploying standard processes in a company do not result in sufficient adherence between the defined and the lived (i.e., the enacted) process. Such situations have severe consequences, e.g., it is not possible to measure processes. Published experience with process definition and deployment projects is often anecdotal or incomplete. This paper describes the adaptation of a generic process standard to an organization and its deployment to daily practice. In this article, the approach taken for adapting and deploying the V-Modell XT in the data processing department of the German Josef Witt GmbH is described. Additionally, effort data and lessons learned with respect to these activities are given. Finally, effects visible so far are sketched.