Customer Solution Case Study
/ / HP Builds Comprehensive Solution for Software Development Project and Process Management
Overview
Country or Region:United States
Industry:High Technology
Customer Profile
HP is a technology solutions provider to consumers, businesses, and institutions globally. The company's offerings span IT infrastructure, global services, business and home computing, and imaging and printing.
Business Situation
Through various mergers and acquisitions, HP software developers have inherited an unwieldy number of development tools and needed to consolidate and standardize on the tools used in the software-engineering process.
Solution
HP used the capabilities provided by Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2005 Team Foundation Server to deliver APPRISE, a comprehensive, enterprisewide solution for project and process management.
Benefits
Improved software-development productivity
Greater predictability and repeatability in solution-delivery performance
Strong extensibility and easy integration with back-end systems for end-to-end visibility in project performance / “With Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server, we were able to develop an enterprise-class solution in half the time it would have taken otherwise.”
Mandar Bhagwat, Program Manager, Hewlett-Packard Company
Due to mergers and acquisitions, Hewlett-Packard Company (HP) software engineers have inherited multiple tools used to support the software-engineering process. To consolidate tools and standardize processes, HP utilized Microsoft® Visual Studio®2005 Team Foundation Server, a component of Visual Studio Team System, to deliver APPRISE, an enterprisewide solution for software development project and process management. Through the extensibility, flexibility, and prebuilt features of Team Foundation Server, HP rapidly and cost-effectively delivered APPRISE, a solution that supports and enforces HP’s own development methodologies, processes, and reporting needs. APPRISE will help HP improve the productivity and predictability of its global customer-solution delivery network, leading to better project governance, process and methodology management, resource usage, and business performance management.
Situation
HP provides technology solutions and services that span IT infrastructures, imaging, printing, personal computing, access devices, media, and business solutions. Consultants from HP Services help enterprises around the world apply an optimal mix of technologies and services to solve critical business challenges. HP Services employs a global delivery model that includes highly qualified and cost-efficient centers of expertise in 28 locations around the world.
Among those centers is HP’s flagship Global Delivery India Center (GDIC) in Bangalore, India, which employs more than 10,000 skilled professionals and has been in operation for more than 15 years. HP GDIC maintains the highest quality of service delivery through ongoing investments in processes, tools, methodologies, and standards, as recognized by its Level 5 certification under the Software Engineering Institute’s Capability Maturity Model (SEI CMM).
HP GDIC has grown significantly over the last few years, including through HP’s acquisition of Digital GlobalSoft and a subsequent merger with another HP business. Each organization had its own tools—developed either internally or by a third party—for managing projects and maintaining SEI CMM Level 5 compliance.
In addition, high growth, stringent quality standards, and newer requirements prompted HP GDIC to begin working on an enterprise solution for software development project and process management—one flexible enough to support continuous process improvement and the adoption of new methodologies. The solution had to support UNIX and Linux workstations as well as computers running the Microsoft® Windows® operating system. In addition, it had to integrate with other tools and back-end systems. Finally, it had to provide visibility into project and program performance at all levels of the organization.
“We needed a solution that could support continual improvement and change,” says Mandar Bhagwat, Program Manager at HP. “We need to be able to implement and measure processes across the organization in a consistent way.”
Solution
HP GDIC developed the Adaptive Project and Process Regulation and Information System for Enterprises (APPRISE), a comprehensive solution that allows HP to standardize and optimize software development processes and methodologies across its businesses. With APPRISE, HP will be able to improve project governance, process and methodology management, resource management, and performance management. The solution is designed to support projects within HP’s own IT environment as well as for HP customers.
Extensible Foundation
APPRISE is based on Microsoft Visual Studio® Team Foundation Server and runs on the Microsoft Windows Server™ 2003 operating system, the foundation of Microsoft Windows Server System™ integrated server software. As the server component of Visual Studio 2005 Team System, Team Foundation Server provides collaboration services that enable all members of the extended project team to easily manage and track the progress and health of projects. Team Foundation Servercapabilities include enterprise-grade source code control and asset management, integrated tracking and reporting of work assignments, and built-in support for process methodology to enable more efficient and predictable software development.
HP GDIC extended the core capabilities provided by Team Foundation Server to deliver a flexible and full-featured solution for project and process management, timesheet management, project review, defect tracking, audits, metrics-gathering, and reporting—including all metrics and reports required for SEI CMM Level 5 certification. HP will use APPRISE together with other components of Visual Studio Team System, such as Visual Studio Team System role-based editions designed specifically for software architects, developers, testers, and other project roles.
In developing APPRISE, HP built upon key features and capabilities of Team Foundation Server, including:
Methodology templates. Team Foundation Server methodology templates define the phases, milestones, and iterations within phases for a specific software development methodology. The templates also define work item types within a given methodology, such as tasks and defects. HP used the methodology template framework in Team Foundation Server to add support for its own methodologies, extending the out-of-the-box template provided for the Microsoft Solutions Framework “Agile” methodology to support its own “waterfall” development methodology. In the future, HP will add support for other methodologies, including application migration, spiral development, and v-model.
Work item infrastructure. Another core feature of Team Foundation Server, the work item infrastructure supports the implementation and management of units of work assigned to members of the project team. HP used the work item infrastructure to add support for additional types of work items, such as reviews and timesheets—and to define the lifecycle of work items, including attributes for workflows and security.
Reporting data warehouse. Team Foundation Server provides support for a reporting data warehouse that runs on Microsoft SQL Server™ 2005, including a predefined database schema for such a database. After the database is set up, Team Foundation Server populates it with project-related metrics captured from the various elements of Visual Studio Team System. HP is using the data warehouse together with SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services to deliver project status reports as well as those required for SEI CMM compliance and continuous process improvement.
In addition to using many of the built-in features of Team Foundation Server, HP took advantage of its extensibility to build a Web-based interface—essentially a Web client that connects with Team Foundation Server through its integration services—that users of both Windows- and non-Windows–based desktop computers can access through a Web browser. The Web interface is implemented using Microsoft ASP.NET 2.0 and runs as a Microsoft Windows SharePoint® Services–based Web Part.
How It Works
When a new project is created in APPRISE, the project is automatically populated with predefined phases based on the selected software development methodology. For example, a project based on the waterfall development methodology includes phases for requirements definition, high-level design, user-interface design, component design, coding and unit testing, integration plan, software development, integration test, and system test. The system also automatically creates a Windows SharePoint Services–based Website, which the project manager can use to modify project phases, such as deleting the system test phase if that work is to be performed by another organization. The project manager also uses the APPRISE Web interface to define entry and exit criteria for various project phases, such as a requirement that design documents must be signed off before the development phase can begin.
The project manager then connects to APPRISE with Microsoft Office Project Professional 2003 and imports the project, including all dependencies and resource lists defined using the APPRISE Web interface. The project manager then uses Project Professional to plan the project, taking advantage of its rich user interface and features such as resource leveling to define tasks and to assign resources. When planning is done, the project manager publishes the project back to APPRISE, upon which the work done in Project Professional is available to all team members through the APPRISE Web interface.
After the project is published to APPRISE, the project manager can use its Web interface to add and delete tasks. Team members use the Web interface to view and report on tasks, identify and track defects, submit timesheets, and perform other project-related activity. The project manager can configure APPRISE to send notifications by e-mail if timesheets are not submitted or if a task is late, and can specify the duration after which such items are due before notifications are sent. Altogether, about 15 project parameters are configurable on a project-by-project basis.
The APPRISE Web interface also includes Team Foundation Server out-of-the-box, predefined reports and HP-developed reports that enable project managers to easily view project status. In addition, because the system includes features for specifying where a project fits within the company’s organizational hierarchy, APPRISE can provide executives with higher-level reports aggregated to the program or business-group level. The APPRISE team now is working on a visual dashboard based on the Visual Studio 2005 development system, SQL Server Reporting Services, and Windows SharePoint Services to show project status at a glance across the organization.
Development and Rollout
Development of APPRISE began in October 2004 and is scheduled to finish in January 2006. The development team includes a project manager, a solution architect, and seven developers at HP GDIC. The team at HP GDIC is collaborating with the Microsoft Visual Studio Team System product team.
Beginning in March 2006, HP GDIC will start using APPRISE for internal projects, as well as for HP customers. Specific user groups that will take advantage of APPRISE include:
Project management office. Users in the project management group, which typically includes project managers, program managers, and quality analysts, will use APPRISE to define methodologies, publish process guidance, monitor critical projects from a performance perspective, conduct quality audits, and participate in reviews.
GDIC management. Executive management primarily will use APPRISE to view periodic reports and, in some cases, participate in exception management. Predefined reports targeted for this group are aggregated to the program or business group level.
Delivery groups. Personnel in all delivery groups—both those who work on Windows-based solutions and those who build solutions on other software platforms—will use the APPRISE Web interface for task updates, process updates, reviews, and timesheets.
Phase two of software development is scheduled to begin in January 2006. In addition to implementing additional development methodology templates, HP will integrate APPRISE with the company’s SAP-based back-end systems for resource management and finance—work that the company can accelerate by using Microsoft BizTalk® Server. HP also will focus on scaling out APPRISE across the company’s tens of thousands of potential users.
Benefits
APPRISE will enable HP to standardize and optimize software development processes and methodologies across the company, resulting in improved project governance, process and methodology management, resource management, and performance management. Visual Studio Team Foundation Server gave HP a firm foundation for building APPRISE by providing prebuilt yet extensible features that allowed HP developers to focus on meeting company-specific needs instead of having to write extensive low-level code. “With Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server, we were able to develop an enterprise-class solution in half the time it would have taken otherwise,” says Bhagwat.
Adds Christina Neary, Worldwide Manager of HP’s Enterprise Microsoft Program Office, “Microsoft Visual Studio Team System will help HP GDIC optimize our software development processes and methodologies. As a result, we will be able to deliver the solutions our enterprise customers need faster and more economically.”
Improved Productivity
APPRISE will help HP improve the productivity of its global delivery network through improved collaboration and access to information. All project-related data—tasks, timesheets, defects, and more—will be stored in one place and available to all users through an intuitive Web interface. Project delivery personnel will have a single tool for task management and reporting progress. Project managers and executives will have a single view into many types of information at a per-project level or across the enterprise, enabling them to more readily understand the overall health of a project, program, or practice for decision making. Integration of APPRISE with other systems and applications—such as Microsoft Office Project Professional 2003 in phase one and HP’s SAP-based finance and resource management systems in phase two—also will improve productivity by eliminating the need to manually transfer data between multiple applications.
Greater Predictability and Repeatability
APPRISE will help reduce deviations from established project plans, making projects more predictable and repeatable through built-in enforcement of HP processes and development methodologies. Work items and their relationships and dependencies are clearly defined within the system, which will help ensure that projects progress according to plan.
APPRISE also will help projects to stay on schedule by providing real-time information to the right decisionmakers. When a project does deviate from plan, the built-in alerting capabilities provided by APPRISE can be configured to immediately notify a project manager so that the appropriate corrective action can be taken. For example, APPRISE can be configured to send an alert if a task is late, enabling the project manager to find out about the issue before the next weekly status meeting or report.
Strong Extensibility and Easy Integration
Team Foundation Server provided a firm foundation for building APPRISE; however, it did not meet all of HP’s needs out-of-the-box. Through the flexible architecture of Team Foundation Server, HP was able to extend its capabilities to deliver a comprehensive solution that does meet all business requirements. For example, HP was able to easily add a Web interface so that the solution could be accessed by personnel from any desktop platform, including Windows, UNIX, Linux, and others. Similarly, HP was able to easily extend Team Foundation Server features such as work item management and methodology templates to satisfy HP’s business requirements such as meeting the criteria necessary for SEI CMM Level 5 certification.
“Team Foundation Server provides exhaustive extensibility and integration features,” says Sanjay Narang, Technical Lead and technical lead for the APPRISE project. “Organizations can customize Visual Studio Team System to support their own processes instead of tailoring their processes to use Visual Studio Team System.”
In addition, the strong integration capabilities provided by Team Foundation Server allow HP to easily connect APPRISE with other systems and applications. Prebuilt support for integration with Project Professional 2003 enabled the company to easily move data into and out of Project, enabling project managers to take advantage of its highly productive user interface and rich feature set. In the second phase of solution development, the integration capabilities provided by Team Foundation Server will allow HP to easily connect the solution with existing systems for resource management and finance, again streamlining the flow of data among systems and eliminating the need to manually reenter project data into multiple systems by hand.
“The work done by HP in developing APPRISE is a great example of our strategy behind Team Foundation Server—and for that matter, Visual Studio Team System in general,” says Rick LaPlante, General Manager at Microsoft. “Our goal was to deliver a comprehensive, integrated tool-set that companies can easily adopt and customize to meet their own unique needs. HP’s APPRISE solution not only validates our thinking on how people will use Visual Studio Team Foundation Server, but is the most comprehensive and impressive example of such a solution we’ve seen to date.”
Microsoft Windows Server System