Information transfer mechanisms are those that serve to disseminate information or knowledge about a particular technology. These mechanisms, summarized in Figure 7-1, allow prospective users of a technology to proceed through the first four stages of commit-ment to organizational change [Conner82]: contact with new technology, awareness of its implications in general, understanding of how it might change an individual’s particular en-vironment, and positive perception of the possibility of using it. Typically, these information transfer mechanisms present a technology in a generic or unadapted state. People par-ticipating in conferences or seminars, for example, must hypothetically "map" the technology to their specific context. These mechanisms might provide, for example, the opportunity to gain an overview of object-oriented software design or cost-estimation models for software projects; but other mechanisms, such as those discussed in the next section, are prereq-uisite to actual use.
Organizations which employ professional engineers or which engage in research and development work often assume that it is sufficient to make mechanisms available, such as those listed in Figure 7-1. This laissez-faire approach to information transfer is effective only to the degree that employees take advantage of the opportunities provided.
Briefings Executive Seminars Libraries or External Literature Company Newspapers Internal & External Seminars &Conferences Peers Consultants Vender Demos User Newsletters or Electronic Bulletin Boards Brown Bag Lunches Sponsored Research Reports Mechanism
Audience Company Journals
Upper Management
Middle Management
First-line Supervisors &
Engineers
X X X X X X X X X
X X X X X X X X
X X X X X X X X X
Figure 7-1: Mechanisms for Information Transfer
An organization may wish to proceed more deliberately and systematically, as in the case of setting goals to move toward increasing levels of process maturity. If this is true, it must have a planned and purposeful dissemination of information throughout the organization.
Once the assessment and action planning have identified areas for improvement, including technological needs, the organization needs something analogous to an internal marketing campaign. Market segments (such as levels of management, potential sponsors, and various communities of engineers) can be targeted and, after research, appropriate infor-mation transfer mechanisms chosen for each. The process group, the technical working groups, and the steering committee should plan this program and cooperate in implementing it. A specific overall goal must drive the strategy; for example, moving up one full level of the process maturity framework within 24 months.
STRATEGY FOR EXECUTIVE SPONSORS: Analyze opportunities to make contact with senior executives. Lay out a systematic
"campaign" to provide them with information on the relevant technology (including its relationship to business conditions and information on what other organizations are doing) at the right times.
Tactics might include:
1) Briefing potential sponsors or getting consultants to do so, and then having the sponsors brief or meet with peers.
2) Getting a place on the agenda of annual executive seminars, or internal technical conferences where senior executives may appear, for an appropriate level speaker who can discuss both the strategy and candidate technologies.
3) Getting coverage of candidate technologies in the company newspaper; providing writers with appropriate material as needed.
4) Getting on the agenda of meetings of standing committees, e.g. corporate quality committees or task forces, or software technology steering groups, to discuss strategy and candidate technologies.
5) Getting a task force set up to provide input on the strategy.
6) Lobbying to have executives set policy for managers and engineers to attend relevant outside training and conferences addressing the technology areas identified.
OBJECTIVE: Create awareness of technology that can support software process improvement resulting in a Level 3 by a self-assessment in 18 months.
OVERALL STATEGY: Determine candidate technologies. Identify potential sponsors and collaborators for meeting this objective.
Prepare a schedule of opportunities to provide sponsors and collaborators with exposure to these technologies.
STRATEGY FOR MANAGERS: Analyze opportunities to make contact with middle managers and first-line supervisors. Plan a system- atic "campaign" to provide them with information on the relevant technology (including information on what other organizations are doing, the connection to business conditions, and resource requirements) in a timely way.
Tactics might include:
1) Briefing potential sponsors individually or in standing committees or organizational groupings, and then having them brief their peers.
2) Requesting the technical library or its equivalent to subscribe to journals and then having them periodically circulate tables of contents to a distribution list you have created. Circulating research reports to the same list.
3) Getting coverage in the company newspaper; providing writers with material appropriate to the interests and concerns of managers.
4) Getting knowledgeable sponsors or consultants to appear at internal management seminars or conferences to discuss the objectives and candidate technologies.
5) Having vendors conduct special management demonstrations of products.
6) Running focus groups with managers to bring concerns to the surface, gather ideas, issues.
7) Suggesting that managers attend certain outside conferences or training workshops, and/or have their people attend these.
STRATEGY FOR COLLABORATORS: Analyze opportunities to provide information to and gather ideas from engineers who may use or help implement the new technologies. Use these same occasions to identify "opinion leaders", potential process group members, potential working group leaders and members, special needs, and internal experts in the technology areas.
Tactics might include:
1) Having the technical library or its equivalent subscribe to appropriate journals; making a distribution list and then having the library circulate tables of contents periodically.
2) Getting coverage in the company newspaper; provide material targeted to the engineers who may use a new technology.
3) Providing experts from outside and inside the organization to present talks at internal seminars, colloquia, and brown bag lunches.
4) Running focus groups, inviting both key advocates and skeptics, to solicit ideas, concerns.
5) Arranging for demonstrations by vendors of processes, methods, and tools that are candidate technologies.
6) Setting up electronic bulletin boards or newsletters providing news of and ideas about candidate technologies, and also information on local experts and users, sources of reference material, and descriptions of conferences and training workshops.
Figure 7-2: Example of Strategy for Software Process Improvement
The specifics of the strategy will vary widely depending on the organization. A strawman strategy for process improvement within a particular division of a large corporation is il-lustrated in Figure 7-2. The major difference between this strategy and a more usual technology-driven approach to information transfer is simply that the proposed strategy uses ordinary mechanisms very systematically with the goal of meeting a focused objective with a far-reaching effect.