The Software Quality Institute at Griffith University is pleased to announce the availability of the Beta Release of the Appraisal Assistant tool.
The Appraisal Assistant has been developed by the Software Quality Institute, Griffith University, to support the assessment or appraisal of process capability or organizational maturity, following approaches consistent with the requirements of ISO/IEC 15504 - Information technology: Process assessment, and the Assessment Requirements for CMMI®. Appraisal Assistant takes an explicitly evidence-driven approach to recording the information generated in an assessment.
Appraisal Assistant provides:
- Support for multiple process models - the beta version includes ISO/IEC FDIS 15504-5 and CMMI® SE/SW/IPPD/SS V 1.1.(The current release supports the FDIS version of ISO/IEC 15504-5; this will be upgraded to the IS version following publication).
- Support for multiple methods of performing assessment / appraisal, including SCAMPI A and B Class, and generic ISO/IEC 15504 conformant assessment methods.
- Support for conversion of results from one framework to another; i.e. expression of CMMI Appraisal results as ISO 15504 standard process profiles,and definition of coverage of ISO 9001 requirements by CMMI or ISO 15504 assessments / appraisals.
- Separation of recording of documentary and interview evidence.
- Facility to split and consolidate evidence capture activities within the team through the establishment of mini-teams.
- Automatic generation of a variety of reports, including Appraisal / Assessment Findings, Strength / Weakness summaries, Rating Profiles, and workload summaries.
- Automatic reporting of model coverage by collected evidence, to meet the requirements of the SCAMPI A method.
Individuals and organizations who undertake assessments / appraisals of process capability are invited to participate in the beta testing of this tool.
Once you register, you will receive a Username and Password via email to login and access the download page and feedback forms. At any time, you may login to the feedback page, and either report a defect or provide general feedback. When a new release of the tool is ready, all users will be advised by email. We anticipate providing new releases about every six months; the beta release period is expected to continue for two years from the original release.
Apart from providing us defect reports and suggestions, it is a condition of the End User License Agreement that beta testers participate in our usability surveys. You only need to fill out the survey before downloading the updated versions. If you had used Appraisal Assistant in an appraisal/assessment AND you were the team leader, we ask you to provide us the project workload metrics (one per appraisal/assessment). This data file will be generated by Appraisal Assistant. It consists of a set of metrics that will give us a general idea of the appraisal scope and the evidence usage patterns. It does NOT report any ratings, findings or anything descriptive. The data file is in plain text, you are welcome to review it before submitting. This information will be used to support the SQI's ongoing research into the assessment process, aimed at improving the reliability of assessments and reducing the associated resource requirements.
