Projects

PASS (Pay-roll Accounting and Settlement System)

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This project is carried out with the financial support of the European Union under the European Systems and Software Initiative (ESSI). EP Number 21223
Introduction

Background Information
  Objectives
  Involved companies
   and their roles

Starting scenario

Expected business impact

Implementation of
 Process Improvement
  Organisation
  Technical environment
  Training
  Phases of the experiment
  Internal dissemination

Results and Analysis
  Technical
  Business
  Organisation
  Culture
  Skills Key Lessons
  Technological Point-of-View
  Business Point-of-View
  Strengths and weaknesses

Conclusions and future actions

Glossary

References

Starting scenario

Before starting the ESSI PIE project, significant improvement of the software development process had been achieved. During the period from November 1995 to March 1997 MemoLuX performed improvement actions, the software development process improved significantly by the work of MemoLuX's own staff, and the results were approved by the BOOTSTRAP assessment. The maturity level of MemoLuX rose above the repeatable process level (2.5 CMM score achieved). The succes of the former project led MemoLuX to a better starting position than the one it had when the EU Software Best Practice started.

The BOOTSTRAP assessment was carried out by MTA SZTAKI, the only Hungarian licensed assessor, in order to clarify the strengths and weaknesses in the software development process at MemoLuX. This gave the following conclusion:

    The maturity level was 2.5 in the SPU (Software Producing Unit) global environment and the same score was measured in the selected SPU project. The main strengths and weaknesses as deviations from the average are outlined in the below figure based on BOOTSTRAP attributes
  Strength Weaknesses
Organization management responsibility quality system
Methodology process description
process measurement
operation and maintenance		 testing
integration
architectural design
risk management
Technology communication
user requirements		 CASE tools
Figure 2
Strength and weaknesses at starting phase

Looking at the status of software engineering practice at MemoLuX, the quality management of IT projects needed enhancement. Improvement steps, to be carried out first with the guidance of the subcontractor, were planned in several areas:

Organisation

  • setting up a Quality Management Unit
  • setting up a Project Management Unit
  • providing quality management training for the project management and staff
Methodology
  • preparing the Quality Manual for the software development activities
  • establishing a standardized and documented software development process
  • introducing standards to software product documentation
  • introducing standardized testing methods (including metrics, documentation)
  • creating and using metrics for measuring project progress, collecting and analyzing progress and product metrics
Technology
  • in the software development unit:
    • unified methods for configuration and change management,
    • planning tools possible with graphical representation for the planning model, software development plan and schedules.
The business purpose of the PASS baseline project is to develop a modular, platform independent, integrated networked software system satisfying functional requirements of EU standards in public accountancy at a European business level and applicable for either small or medium or even large enterprises working for the Hungarian as well as for the international market. The system provides the direct service among Employers, Employees and Banks for applying bank transfers. More and more companies are willing to outsource their pay-roll accounting. However, the PC based pay-roll account systems available in the Hungarian market are not suitable for Employers having several thousands of Employees. The need for pay-roll systems with 100.000 items is emerging. The creation of a nation-wide networked software system for supporting up-to-date banking services in Hungary is a kind of solution for solving these problems.

To complete the phases of the PIE and the baseline project new organizations were defined. These were the project organization for PIE, the project organization for the baseline project, Steering Committee, Project Board, QMU (Quality Management Unit) setup for MemoLuX, establishment of the risk management team, etc. The next step was to define the roles, the persons and the organizations involved in each workphase.

Since the problem of who does what was solved by defining the roles and the associated responsible persons, we had to make decisions on how we were going to put our thoughts together. At the premises of MemoLuX an FTP server was set up and all the released and work documentation are stored there. The server is always on-line. Additionally, the useable software standards were fixed for scheduling and documentation, common templates were made, reviewed, accepted and distributed.

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