• Organizational Assessment - Understand your organization's strengths and weaknesses and obtain a prioritized improvement strategy.
• Report Card - Benchmark your organization in the use of software engineering best practices and determine the highest leverage areas for improvement.
• Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) Definition - From waterfall to agile development practices, an SDLC helps define the major steps, activities, and deliverables that need to occur on all projects. We'll help you define the SDLC that fits within our current development practices and provides the gates and checkpoints necessary to provide project visibility.
• Project Planning and Tracking Support - Our experts help project teams build realistic project plans that can be used manage the project to a successful outcome.
• Methodology Selection and Implementation - Whether you are moving to more agile methods, implementing Feature Driven Development, or need to determine which lifecycle to use of a critical project, Maxsam Partners experts can help you select the lifecycle and practices that will help your projects succeed.
• Retrospectives - We help teams create action plans for implemented changes based on lesson learned from the current project, increment, or phase.
• Estimation Process Development - We work with key staff to build a standard process for creating and refining estimates on your projects.

SDLC Definition
A solid Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) provides structure so that team members and project stakeholders all understand the current state of the project. It supports visibility and predictability while enabling project teams to make specifics choices that achieve the business goals and constraints. Maxsam Partners can provide guidance, support, and expertise as you define your SDLC. Common SDLC Focus Areas. We typically define and deploy an SDLC in two phases. During the first phase, we'll work together to review existing SDLC or process materials and project deliverables. The focus in the first phase is on:

• Identifying the major software development phases
• Creating project profiles to capture the unique types of work occurring in the organization
• Determining major gaps in current process materials
• Identifying process materials that need to be modified or extended
• At the conclusion of the first phase, you'll receive an overview of the new SDLC and an Implementation Plan for piloting the SDLC on one or more projects. The Implementation Plan will identify specific process changes, the pilot project(s), and the activities and deliverables anticipated for the pilot. Typical activities that occur during the pilot include:
  
  • Refining your SDLC overview and creating more detailed process documentation
  • Defining the responsibilities and authorities that are necessary to ensure team members understand their roles
  • Tailoring Maxsam Partners MP Process Framework to support efficient creation of high quality deliverables
  • Conducting Maxsam Partners best practice seminars to grow your staff's skills and knowledge in fundamental software engineering practices
  • Conducting retrospectives to identify lessons learned and creating actions plans for improvements after major project milestones

Agile Adoption
Wondering which agile practices will best meet your company's needs? Unsure whether you have the mix right of agility, predictability, and visibility? Looking for independent verification that being Agile has improved your quality and productivity? Maxsam Partners can help your organization navigate the waters of Agile practices with our Agile Practices Review. We start by understanding your Agile-related business objectives. We review your existing practices, both Agile and traditional. We then provide recommendations about specific business planning practices, agile practices, and software lifecycles that you can implement to achieve your objectives. Common Agile Recommendation Areas:

• Selecting the overall lifecycle or methodology that will meet the needs of your projects and programs (Evolutionary Delivery, SCRUM, FDD, Staged Delivery, and so on)
• Determining the most efficient and effective requirements techniques (storyboards, prototyping, user stories, or others)
• Identifying the level of up-front estimation, design, and planning that's appropriate for your business needs
• Recommending specific management techniques and practices for your detailed iteration planning
• Our clients often ask how to be responsive to customer needs while providing project predictability and visibility. Our Agile Practices Review can help you launch an Agile initiative or improve an existing Agile program. An Agile Practices Pilot can follow the review to help your organization efficiently adopt the recommended changes.

Improvement Planning
Maxsam Partners can help your organization build a specific process improvement plan. Our experts will work with your team to determine the specific activities and deliverables necessary to implement change, assign owners, establish the criteria identifying when tasks are complete, and place activities on a detailed improvement timeline.

• An Improvement Planning Workshop commonly follows our Organizational or Project Assessments to ensure the recommendations can be quickly and fully implemented to provide the highest return on your investment. Process improvement is an ongoing effort requiring continual tuning and focus. We provide ongoing assistance as you deploy improvements throughout the organization and on specific projects. Our experts can help solve specific project issues, review changes and deliverables as practices are deployed, or coach specific employees to grow the skills of your staff.
• Health Checks produce a report outlining the progress to date and providing recommendations about the highest leverage changes for continued improvement. They provide an ongoing review of your improvement efforts to ensure they stay on track and focus on the highest leverage items.

Methodology Selection
From implementing more agile practices, to piloting Feature Driven Development, to tuning your current software development methodology, Different projects have different constraints, goals, and business objectives. Selecting the right lifecycle and methodology supports project visibility, minimizes overhead, and supports on-time project delivery. Maxsam Partners can help. We'll work with your team to determine the lifecycle, methodology, and technical processes that will meet the needs of your project. Maxsam Partners methodology selection support commonly includes the following activities:

• Determine the project objectives, constraints, and goals
• Clarify project priorities such as schedule, feature set, existing customer commitments, etc.
• Select the lifecycle and practices which match the stability of the requirements and the business need for responsiveness
• Identify project management techniques and practices that meet the unique needs of the project
• Ensure the existing architecture and code base will support current and future business objectives

Retrospectives
Would you spend one percent of the duration of your current project or increment to save weeks on the next one, and the one after that, and so on? Every project or stage within a project provides opportunities to learn how to improve the way that your team builds and delivers products to its customers. Retrospectives are a structured way to capture lessons learned and create specific actions plans for improving on the next project or stage. These retrospectives are based on a structured process and uses this basic outline:

• Analyze the Project. The project or project increment is reviewed from a number of different aspects to understand the important events that occurred.
• Develop Lessons Learned. The specifics about what went well and what can be improved on the next project or increment are captured.
• Create Action Plans. A plan outlining the tasks, deliverables, and time lines, and owners for implementing changes to address the highest priority lessons is created.
• Our retrospectives result in a specific actionable plan to increase the effectiveness of your practices.