nitrc:NITRC Prioritization Process for Changes to the Site

From NITRC Wiki

How Do Changes to the Site Get Made?

The NITRC team applies rigorous CMMI-2 and PMBOK processes for requirements management and change control. Serving more along the lines of an advisory committee rather than a change control board, the NITRC CCB is responsible for setting priorities and then recommending a high-level development schedule to the NIH Project Officer. This includes the review of higher priority requirements, or feature requests, and to which Major Releases they should be allocated. The NIH Project Officer ensures that the development projects adhere to NIH’s goals in terms of risk management, technical standards, and budget and schedule adherence. The NIH Project Officer also approves changes to Major Release dates , system configuration changes, and COTS version updates.

NITRC Requirements Management Process

Software changes to the web site are managed like other changes to the contract scope, resources, or schedule.

Definitions of Feature Request Priorities

• Priority 5: critical Feature Request that must be done immediately, as it affects uptime. This Feature Request is fixed regardless of the level of difficulty and the number of code segments or modules impacted by the change.
• Priority 4: should be done before Priority 4 Feature Requests, anticipating within two Major Releases
• Priority 3: should be done before Priority 2 Feature Requests, anticipating within four Major Releases
• Priority 2: may be developed within current contract funding if it can be addressed as is part of a higher priority Feature Request
• Priority 1: will not be developed within the current contract funding

Development work presented to the CCB for review is based on the following criteria:

• within contract scope
• upon review by the NITRC team, it received a priority of 4 or 3 to prioritize and recommend the next Major Release’s authorize changes to it

The CCB does not review Priority 2 or 1 Feature Requests, as the backlog of Priority 5-3 is beyond the tenure of the current contract. The NIH Project Officer approves implementation of any Priority 5 Feature Requests.

Requirements Management/Feature Request Prioritization Process

Overview

The NITRC team meets a minimum of twice monthly to review Bugs and Feature Requests. The following questions are asked about each item:

• Is it categorized correctly?
• Is it within scope?
• Is there a way to work around the stated problem, or must it be solved?
• Was it submitted by someone from the NITRC user community?

Change Control Board Review Process

The current requirements management process is as follows:

1. Annually, the NITRC team delivers a list of recommended work packages inclusive of all Priority 5, 4 and 3 Feature Requests (with the exception of those which are categorized as “Easy”)
2. The NITRC CCB members review the Feature Requests, engage in on-line discussion, and votes their individual preferred order of priority
3. The NITRC team orders the recommended priorities based on the CCB individual votes by mean, with least variance first. (The NITRC Project Manager may move specific Feature Requests to take advantage of programming economies and minimize additional testing costs)
4. The NITRC team presents the schedule for implementing Feature Requests for discussion and consensus during the annual NITRC CCB meeting
5. The CCB recommended development priorities are provided to the NIH Project Officer who gives the NITRC team final approval

Use Case Development Process

After the NIH Project Officer approves the NITRC CCB recommendations, the NITRC team initiates the use case development process. Use cases are developed for Feature Requests that require new programming but not developed for Feature Requests deemed trivial to existing functionality. These use cases are reviewed by:

1. the NITRC team
2. the user who submitted the Feature Request. (The NITRC Moderator and Customer Liaison, as appropriate, works with the person submitting the Feature Request to ensure the user's requirements are met.)
3. NIH Project Officer

Concurrently, the use cases are uploaded to NITRC Community Docs for review by volunteers from the NITRC CCB and the NITRC community at large

NITRC CCB Membership