Measuring Process Adoption

As the hypothesized value of new process elements is proved by pilot projects, the SEPG should prepare for broad deployment and subsequent implementation. Many organizations make the process elements available via the Web and expect that the projects will simply start using them. This Field of Dreams approach ("if you build it, they will come") is intuitively appealing to the SEPG, but rarely proves to be an effective or efficient means of changing people's behavior.

Other organizations follow a strategy similar to that employed for their software packages. These organizations package multiple new or modified process elements into periodic "process releases," and accompany each release with release notes, testimonial data from the pilot projects, process training, internal consultation, and a great deal of fanfare. Typically, these process releases are made one to four times per year. This approach provides sufficient process stability and ensures that project personnel aren't constantly struggling to figure out what today's process is.

Regardless of the deployment approach, as new process elements are released, the SEPG should monitor the project adoption rate ”the rate at which the new process elements are being adopted by the project teams . The primary question addressed by measuring the adoption rate is: How many of the projects that should be using these new elements are using them?

The SEPG should seek to apply process improvement concepts to its own processes (" physician , heal thyself "), one of which is the deployment process. In an effort to provide better services in the future, the SEPG should ask a series of secondary questions related to the adoption rate such as:

• Why are some projects resisting adoption of the new elements?
• Is this resistance based on inadvertent side effects that weren't experienced on the pilot projects?
• Should there be additional support mechanisms to assist behavioral change and project adoption?
• Should there be tailoring guidelines that reduce the administrative overhead of these new process elements when implemented in small projects?
• How much effort is being invested in supporting the adoption of these new elements?"

The data derived from the answers to such questions can be analyzed to accelerate the adoption of the current process release as well as to enhance the means of releasing new process elements in the future.