Define+Standard+Process

=10. Define Standard Processtoc= A standard process is a minimum set of procedures defined and approved for use by an organization. A standard process gives the organization a written script to follow. At my job we have a script to follow when we are writing software or writing a contract, everyone knows their role and take on their responsibilities.

10.1 Establish an Action Team
The risk management process should be a diverse team that includes different people from different parts and levels of the organization. An effective team should understand the concepts below. A team should have a leader to ensure the everyone knows the task at hand, a facilitator that manages decision makings, a recorder that take notes of all the meetings and decisions, and participants that gets involved in the discussions.
 * A team is not a group. A team should share information, and be on the same page, and share ideas.
 * A team is task oriented. A team is built to achieve a goal, and the team should share that same purpose or goal.
 * A team matures over time. Every member of a team should be able to live with the decision made by the team. Working over time makes the team stronger.

10.1.1 Build a High-Performance Team
Building a high-performance team involves teamwork training, problem solving methods, and using data to achieve a goal. A High- performance team should share the same vision and expects to succeed. Each individual team member should be accountable. Each team member should know their role in the team and do their part. A team should evaluate itself, to make sure that it’s working at its best.

10.1.2 Organize the Team for Success
Each team member should have a notebook to keep track of the path to completion, and to take note on process definition. No one can remember everything, especially with 8 hours of work, people tend to forget things, I always go to my contract meeting with a note book to take notes and have something to write on if I have a task handed to me. We have 4 team meetings during the contracting process, and other small meetings to make sure that everyone is on the same page, before we send out the contract package.

10.1.3 Level the Playing Field
Everyone on the team should have the same understanding of the process and the terminology used in the process. This is to ensure that everyone is on the same level and also if someone outside of the team asks a question, it would look bad if someone on the team didn’t have an idea of what the answer is.

10.2 Develop the Draft Standard Process
The Draft Standard Process is the product of the action team and is a brief overview of the final product. This section covers the steps that it takes to develop a draft standard process.

10.2.1 Select a Process Design Method
The IDEF0 below shows a design that could be used as a design process. You have an input, control and mechanism that enters the Process element, and results in an output.

10.2.2 Gather the Risk Practices Data
The action team should gather data of risk practices as one of their task. You can gather data from company practices. Going through observing your own company’s policy is the best place start gathering data. The next place to gather data is from the industry. Other companies in your industry have adopted their own process, knowing their processes and the effectiveness of their process is a good way to gather data. Another way to gather data is to look at the standard organizations. My group we usually look at the IEEE standard whenever we are dealing with anything that transmits any type of electrical magnetic interference.

10.2.3 Scope the Effort and Products
The action team has an understanding the difference between the team’s objective and the organization’s current practice. All changes are dependent on the amount of money that is allocated to it in the budget. You have to recognize the organization flexibility to change. Different changes have different scopes:
 * A procedural change could be viewed has a narrow scope. A procedural change might just be an improvement. The risk for this change is lower.
 * A structural change has a broad scope. There’s a bigger level of change, so higher risk. Structural change is done when the old way is not working, and you should start with blank slate.

10.2.4 Define the Draft Standard Process
A draft standard process is the result of the scope. During the design phase of the draft standard process:
 * Reducing bureaucracy to remove unnecessary approval cycles and paperwork. At work we usually try to keep our contract under a certain amount, so that it won’t have to go through the wing director, which makes everything go faster.
 * Eliminating duplication removes the unnecessary steps, thus making it more understandable.
 * Adding value to the process makes the need for the change important. People that read it will get the result from the change of policy.
 * Minimize errors.
 * Standardize.
 * Automate=> Using a computer to do routine takes saves time, manpower and takes out the human error factor.

10.3 Review the Draft Standard Process
The action team members have the responsibility of reviewing the product. This section covers what’s needed to review the draft standard process.

10.3.1 Prepare the Review Package
The leader of the action team should review who the review package is sent to. The package should let the recipient know what the project is and what the percentage completeness is.

10.3.2 Review the Draft Standard Process
A meeting should be set up to review the draft standard process. The reviewers should have their comments ready and bring them to the meeting, that way they can be discussed face to face. Any assignments from the meeting are known action meetings. This is the same way that we have meetings at my workplace. The documents are emailed before the meeting, we review it and then we make notes on questions that we have.

10.3.3 Incorporate the Recommended Changes
After the meeting, the changes are incorporated into the product. The list of actions from the meeting is prioritized and then the feasible changes are implemented. We usually have another meeting or send the updated package to the reviewer, to get a go ahead or get new action items.

10.4 Document the Standard Process
The action team has to document the standard process. A change is request is usually part of the standard process.

10.4.1 Elaborate the Draft Standard Process
Elaborating the draft standard process is making sure that the draft was properly decomposed, and documenting in detail each section, and adding examples in each section.

10.4.2 Evaluate the Standard Process
The action team leader, the product review team leader and a subset of reviewers gets together to evaluate the standard process by checking the Implementation of approved organization policy, the compliance to action plan, and the compliance to product standard.

10.4.3 Close the Action Items
Closing the Action Items is to review the comments from the review meeting, and then sending a response to each one of them.

10.5 Approve the Standard Process
The action team leader has to send the final document to the people with authority to get their signatures. After all the work is done, the team should get recognition for their hard work.

10.6 Distribute the Standard Process
The action team leader is responsible to make sure that the standard process after it’s approved by the appropriate authorities. The new process should be distributed to the training manager, and should also be written in the guidebooks.