Process Assessment and Improvement: A Practical Guide for Managers, Quality Professionals and Assessors (The Springer International Series in Engineering and Computer Science) [Hardcover]

Han van Loon (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 15, 2004 | ISBN-10: 038723182X | ISBN-13: 978-0387231822 | Edition: 1

Process Assessment and Improvement: A Practical Guide For Managers, Quality Professionals and Assessors provides the reader with a powerful and practical approach to improving their organization through process assessment, combined with people factors such as organizational culture and team based improvement. It is the first practical guidebook to the emerging ISO/IEC 15504 standard.

Process Assessment and Improvement: A Practical Guide For Managers, Quality Professionals and Assessors covers the three major business reasons for process assessment including setting Target Profiles, Process Capability Determination and Process Improvement in chapters 2 to 5. The book provides powerful figures on the costs of poor quality, and the benefits of improvement for organizations involved in software and IT. This book provides comprehensive improvement programs and also agile improvement methodologies, grounded in successful practices that have been employed in world class organizations.

Chapters 6 to 8 provide assessors with a standard assessment method and variants, plus how to rate a process up to ISO/IEC 15504 capability level 5. Chapter 9 describes industry experience using the standard. Useful examples, templates and tools are provided in Annexes. There is a companion book titled Process Assessment and ISO/IEC 15504: A Reference Book.

Editorial Reviews

Review

From the reviews:

"Van Loon’s approach to the field of organizational processes is: to create three conceptual sections, in order to describe precisely the internal structure; to explain adequately the theoretical foundations; and to point out its practical aspects. … The text is well organized. … The examples and templates shown can help professionals to put a fast pace on performing assessments and improving process effectiveness. … The methods are presented in a well-organized manner, with van Loon’s experience presented in a structured and effective way." (John Sanvougioukas, Computing Reviews, January, 2008)

From the Back Cover

Process Assessment and Improvement: A Practical Guide, Second Edition, provides a powerful and practical approach to improving organizations through process assessment, combined with people factors such as organizational culture and team-based improvement. Originally published in 2004 as the first practical guide to the emerging ISO/IEC 15504 standard, this second edition presents an updated version of process assessments and includes new risk methods. This guide also offers a separate reference book entitled Process Assessment and ISO/IEC 15504: A Reference Book. Process Assessment and Improvement: A Practical Guide, Second Edition, covers three major business reasons for process assessment: setting Target Profiles, Process Capability Determination, and Process Improvement.  Also provided are figures on the costs of poor quality and the benefits of improvement for organizations involved in software and IT. The comprehensive improvement programs and agile improvement methodologies presented in this book are grounded in successful practices employed in world class organizations. Useful examples, templates and tools are included. Process Assessment and Improvement: A Practical Guide, Second Edition, is designed for a professional audience composed of researchers, libraries and practitioners in industry.  This guide is suitable for graduate-level students in computer science and engineering as well.   --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 321 pages
• Publisher: Springer; 1 edition (December 15, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 038723182X
• ISBN-13: 978-0387231822
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,488,949 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Highly recommend if you want to boost your business, December 1, 2004

By 

Bernhard Gschwentner - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Process Assessment and Improvement: A Practical Guide for Managers, Quality Professionals and Assessors (The Springer International Series in Engineering and Computer Science) (Hardcover)

This author has written two books about process assessment; this one looks at how process assessment can be used - in other words the practical aspects. It is written in a way that should appeal to businessmen and managers, as well as quality specialists and assessors.

The author starts by looking at the cost of poor quality - billions per year and writes 3 business cases for the use of process assessment - a good way to convince management to invest in quality activities such as process assessment. The author obviously has worked in highly capable organizations and provides the reader with some very thought provoking facts and questions. The first half of the book should appeal to any technical or management trained reader (e.g. MBAs) - explaining in a clear way how to use assessment results for determining the capability of your suppliers, or how to improve your own business. The author has provided various ways to improve the organization, both based upon the standard and upon methods he developed, including agile improvement methods and team-based methods. He addresses people aspects in several sections, including some cultural aspects in order to help readers who face organizational politics (and who doesn't sometime run into that!). He describes how various industries are using the standard - which throws light on how much the standard is being used in Europe. The book also has some very detailed help for process assessors in 3 chapters on planning, running and performing assessments.

The book presents information, using lots of illustrations and tables to ease the reader's understanding. Overall I found the approach very readable and the advice practical and very useful. It makes a good complement to the Reference book written by the same author.

I highly recommend this book to readers looking for help in improving their business.