Outcome: Center of Capability Established
A virtual organization of mentors who have successfully used one or more software development capabilities (process and tools) on a project and can help other teams adopt them has been established.
Domains: Software Capability Improvement
Purpose
A Center of Capability (CoC) drives the adoption of software development capabilities across the organization. It supports the rollout of process and tool improvements through mentoring and helps adapt those improvements to changing requirements.
Relationships
Main Description
A tools and process Center of Capability is a proven organizational model for evolving the organization's software development capabilities over time through mentoring and execution on real projects. It is a virtual group with process and tool mentors that establishes a consistent approach to process and tool configuration to meet the business needs of the IT organization. It provides leadership and training to development teams and helps the organization measure its return on investment in process and tools.
Centers of Capability provide the following to support the organization's process and enterprise tool configuration deployments:
  • Coordination of mentoring activities
  • Skills transfer
  • Evolution of the process and tools configurations through feedback
  • Socialization and evangelism of software capability improvements
  • Thought leadership

Mentors typically work part time for the Center of Capability,  allocating up to 30% of their time for a period of two years. Keeping the Center of Capability virtual allows people to continue to focus on project work without a major career change for the mentor. It also keeps them sharp as they work on their own projects.

Key Considerations

Some organizations staff their Centers of Capability with full-time mentors. In this approach, mentors should be rotated in and out (6 months- 1 year) in order to stay current and relevant.

An organization may have more than one Center of Capability. CoCs may be established to drive adoption of a single process or tool, or a set of related improvements.

Tailoring
Impact of not having

Without a structured mentoring program, there is a risk of low adoption.  Without experienced mentors who can advise and tailor the process to solve a particular team's problems and address its objectives, the team might feel overwhelmed. The organization is likely to regress into ad-hoc processes and tool configurations.