Governance

Governance concerns utilization of resources through the control of time and money relative to the flow of value. MSF for CMMI® Process Improvement defines five tracks for the project life cycle which encapsulate sets of workstreams and activities. Each track concludes with governance checkpoints. Each checkpoint provides an opportunity to authorize continued work on the project or to cancel or suspend the project. The checkpoint for each track asks a different question or set of questions. The objective for the work within a track is to provide the answers to the governance questions and back those answers with transparent project data gathered through the day-to-day operations of the software engineering organization. The MSF Governance Model is designed to be risk tolerant and to facilitate the easy flow of a project. Tracks start when the required inputs are available; i.e., tracks are event driven. Work in several tracks can run in parallel. Governance checkpoints at the end of tracks provide the opportunity to shut a project down with the understanding that some work on subsequent tracks may already be underway. The risk of waste is balanced against the desire to keep the project moving and be both agile and productive within a formal governance framework.   MSF for CMMI® Process Improvement seeks to separate out the operational management of the organization from the corporate governance of the organization. The first asks for a focus on "are we good at software engineering?" whilst the second asks for a focus on "are we making best use of our software engineering resources?" Operational management is about capacity, quality, and reliable, low variation engineering. Governance is about making best use of the shareholder's or tax payer's funds through the optimal utilization of capacity.