Productivity Improvement using Automation In Project Planning, Monitoring and Control by Ashish Jain( Aricent Technologies) presented at 1st International Colloquium on CMMI High Maturity Best Practices held on May 21, 2010, organized by QAI

1. Productivity Improvement using Automation
In Project Planning, Monitoring and Control
-Ashish Jain
(Aricent Technologies)
QAI’10 / Ashish Jain - Aricent Technologies

2. Productivity Improvement using Automation
– in Project Planning, Monitoring and Control
Ashish Jain – Aricent Technologies

3. Agenda
 Who we are
 What we offer
 Need of Automation in Planning, Monitoring and Tracking
 Automation - Traditional Approach
 Automation with Agility
 Case Study
– Problem Statement
– Requirements
– Design and Implementation
– Effort Saving
 Illustration of usage
 Strengths
 Benefits
 Applicability
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4. Who We Are
Aricent is the world’s leading independent
communications software company.
– Dedicated focus on communications software
– Unmatched depth and breadth of services
and products
– Culturethan 400 customers across theresults
More of innovation, excellence and world
Equipment Manufacturers
Device Manufacturers
Service Providers
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5. What We Offer
Wireless Data Signaling Packet networks/
Communications VoIP
GSM, GPRS/EDGE, 3G, ISDN, SS7 and SIGTRAN IMS, SIP, H.248, MGCP,
WCDMA, CDMA2000, Routers, VPN and QoS, VoWiFi, Interworking
WiMAX, UMA, Femtocell ATM, IP, MPLS, GigE,
Platform 8,000+ employees with expertise in all Communication
Engineering
major communications categories Applications Based
Messaging, Location
ATCA, Network Processors
Services, Workforce
Automation, Voice Applications
Mobile Handsets Billing and OSS
User Interface, Multimedia Multi-vendor Billing,
Applications, Physical OSS Integration, Service
Layer, Middleware, Multiple Activation, OSS/BSS
OS and Platforms, DSP Business Process Re-eng
DSP Broadband and Network Transmission
Video and Voice Processing, Wireless access Management
Audio/Video Codecs, xDSL, Satellite, Cable, TL1, SNMP, CORBA and SONET/SDH, RPR, DWDM
Network Processor 802.11a/b/g/i and WiMAX CLI
Application, Microcode
Design
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6. Need of Automation in Planning, Monitoring and Tracking
Effort distribution in Planning, Monitoring and Control Effort distribution in Planning, Monitoring and Control
(Without Automation) : 12% (With Automation) : 8%
*Others : Documentation, Trainings, Configuration Management and Inter Group Coordination
*MM: Man Months
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7. Automation - Traditional approach
 Specific platform competence is required
 Difficult to implement
 Lengthy process
 Problems in incorporating changes
 Costly affair
 Not easy to Maintain
 Integration with existing reports
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8. Automation with Agility (1/2)
Requirements :
 Low cost
 Easy change management
 Maintainable
 Ease of Integration
 Competence need
 Short process
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9. Automation with Agility (2/2)
 Search for the right platform for effective use of automation
 Used formal DAR mechanism for evaluation
Parameters Weights Excel/VBA .Net Licensed tools
Cost 3 4 2 1
Ease of change 2 3 2 2
Integration with given report formats 1.5 4 2 4
Maintainability 1.5 2.5 1 2
Very specific competence 2 4 2 2
Overall Score 52.5 27 33
*Rating has been given on a scale of 1 to 5; 5 being lowest
Based on the score, Excel/VBA has been selected.
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10. Case Study
Problem Statement Requirements Design & implementation Effort Saving
– Requires lot of effort
– Multiple and different kind of reports
– Frequency of the reports
– Dependency
– Repetitive manual work
– Difficulties in data validation
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11. Case Study
Problem Statement Requirements Design & implementation Effort Saving
 Automated sheet should generate stats on following:
– Resource loading
– Defect reporting and clearing trend
– Defect correction time
– Distribution of open of defects
– Open age of defects
– Feature wise defect distribution
– Summary mail to all stakeholders
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12. Case Study
Problem Statement Requirements Design & implementation Effort Saving
 Required functionalities
– Data formatting and correction
– Additional information generation
– Table generation
– Graph preparation
– Sync-up with mailbox
– Email to all the stakeholders
– Don’t break the existing functionalities
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13. Case Study
Problem Statement Requirements Design & implementation Effort Saving
Resource Total A- B- C-
New Investigating FCRT Closed Others Open
Resource loading
Name Defects Critical Major Minor
Total loading of the team members
A 7 1 2 4 0 1 0 6 0 1 - how many defects are assigned to a
B 6 0 1 5 0 0 0 6 0 0 person at a time?
C 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 - how many people are not assigned
D 5 0 4 1 1 4 0 0 0 5 with any defect?
E 3 2 1 0 0 1 0 2 0 1 - who all are looking in to the critical
F 7 4 2 1 4 3 0 0 0 7 defects etc.
Weekly reported Vs Closed trend
- At what rate defects are being reported?
- At what rate they are being closed?
- What is the delta for that week?
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14. Case Study
Problem Statement Requirements Design & implementation Effort Saving
Speedometers for defect correction
time (overall/ severity wise)
- How much time team is taking in moving
a defect from one state to other ?
- Whether that time is with in the
permissible limits or not?
Open Age
Defect ID Reported on State Severity Implementation person
(Days)
Open age: 48161 4/22/2010 Investigating C - Minor Kuldeep 6
17022 4/27/2010 Investigating B - Major Surendra 1
- How many defects are open and since
16171 3/24/2010 FCRT B - Major Rachit 35
how many days they are open?
16164 3/24/2010 FCRT B - Major Jabar 35
- To whom They are assigned?
16646 4/13/2010 Investigating C - Minor Aradhana 15
- What is the current state of that defect?
16615 4/12/2010 Investigating B - Major Jayant 16
16519 4/9/2010 Investigating B - Major Vaibhav 19
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15. Case Study
Problem Statement Requirements Design & implementation Effort Saving
Open defect barometer
-What is the open defect count as on date?
-This used to track the status of open
defect to check the health of project
w.r.t. the commitments given to
customer. This also tells whether we
are in red, amber or green zone.
Feature wise Defect distribution
- Defects which are uncovered during
testing belongs to which feature?
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16. Design and Implementation (4/4)
Problem Statement Requirements Design & implementation Effort Saving
 Mail to relevant stakeholders :
– As on date status summary will be sent to all the defined stakeholders which contains the defect
statistics, feature wise distribution, testing wise distribution etc
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17. Case Study
Problem Statement Requirements Design & implementation Effort Saving
Graph
Plotting
Data
formatting
Plotting a graph takes: 15 minutes
Table
preparation
Graph
Plotting
Effort consumed :
2.5 hours
No. of graphs in a report : 25
# of time this report required in a week : 5, Total monthly effort : 50 hours
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18. Case Study
Problem Statement Requirements Design & implementation Effort Saving
Requirements Analysis Design Implementation
Automation effort : 10-12 hours (one time effort to conceptualize automation)
 Report preparation effort: 5 minutes (for data pasting data and clicking the button)
 Total monthly effort : 2 hours
 Overall effort : 14 hours (including automation effort)
 Total Effort Saving: 36 hours (72%) 
• This effort can be utilized in other activities
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19. Illustration of usage
 Stakeholders :
– Senior management
– Project Management
– Engineering team
– Quality Group
– Other support functions
 Report generation time :
– Takes 5 minutes to generate the required statistics
– Daily/weekly
 Recipient :
– Senior management
– Project Management
– Engineering team
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20. Illustration of usage
Data from Customer report and paste it in
the developed tool
Data Validation/ Formatting
Data correction and Additional information
generation
Graph/table preparation
Sync-up with mailbox
Email to all the stakeholders
Data analysis
Planning for Preventive/ Corrective actions
Re-planning/ Re-estimation/ Re-strategize
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21. Strengths
 Enhanced productivity
 Spontaneous decision making
 Less erroneous
 Most robust system in place
 Gives summarized representation for management overview
 Quick tracking, identification and correction of any possible inefficiencies
 All time visibility on project status
 Availability of latest information through mails
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22. Benefits
 Cost saved
• Licensing cost
• Manpower cost
• Maintenance cost
• Implementation cost
 Suites of tools available
• Defect Prediction and Prevention
• Inspection and Review effectiveness
• Defect Management
• Test end prediction etc
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23. Applicability
 Applicability
• Can be used across the organization
• Independent of team/organization size
• Small customization is required based on the project needs
• Can be used in any kind of project
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24. Contact Details
Ashish Jain
Assistant Manager- Quality
Aricent Technologies Ltd.
Plot 31, Sec.18, Electronic City,
Gurgaon (India)
Phone: +91 124 2346666
E-Mail: ashish2.jain@aricent.com
Website: www.aricent.com
Thank You!
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QAI’10 / Ashish Jain - Aricent Technologies