A Generic Model for Assessing Process Quality

Process assessment and process improvement are both very difficult tasks since we are either assessing or improving a concept rather than an object. A quality process is expected to produce quality products efficiently. Most of the existing models such as CMM, ISO 9001/9000-3 etc. intend to enhance the maturity or the quality of an organization with the assumption that a matured organization will put its processes in place which in turn will produce matured products. However, matured processes do not necessarily produce quality products [21, 6]. The primary reasons are: (i) In the process quality models, the relationship between the process quality and product quality is far from clear, and (ii) many of the process models take a monolithic view of the whole lifecycle process, and as a result, the idiosyncrasies of the individual processes do not receive proper attention. In this paper, we first define an internal process model in a formal manner. Next, we define a generic quality model whose scope covers all the development processes and most of the supporting processes associated with the development phase. The generic quality model is a parametric template and could be instantiated in a systematic manner to produce the quality model for any individual process. We then show such a customization for the formal specification process and use this customized model to formulate a GQM-based measurement plan for the same process. We then discuss how the generic model would be useful in process assessment and process improvement.