Process Governance

The purpose of the Process Governance is to ensure controlled steering and improvement of the R&D processes and applies to the PCP R&D organization.

Governance includes:

• Measure and follow up on process performance
• Check adherence to the R&D processes by the streams
• Identify, develop, and deploy improvements
• Process training
• Process support
• Process Communication

Scope

PCP R&D Processes applies to all PCP R&D organizations. The processes cover the product lifecycles for development and maintenance with interfaces to other parts of the PCP organization such as Product and Portfolio Management, Program Management Office, Operations, etc.

Expectations

PCP R&D Processes shall have the following characteristics:

• Comply with relevant standards (like cyber security, functional safety, and explosion protection) that enable certification of the organization, products, and services developed in compliance with these standards.
• Continuous delivery of value
• Clear responsibilities of system and development streams
• Synchronization at increments and iterations across streams
• Shift-left, CI/CD pipeline, fast feedback on quality issues
• Azure DevOps is the main tool for R&D
• One global R&D process framework applied everywhere!

Objective and Principles

Objective

Process governance shall provide the mechanisms to ensure adherence to activities around delivery, follow-up, and improvement of the PCP R&D Processes are done in a structured and efficient way.

Guiding principles for governance and process management

• Modern -> Way of Working, Tools, etc.
• Simple to apply -> Limited size and user-friendly
• Simple to change -> Small steps, same thinking as product development
• Decentralized -> "Process Inner Sourcing" set up
• Anchored in reality -> Work with streams and teams to avoid "paper tigers"

=> Flexible adaptation, ONE SIZE does not fit all. Process guidelines should be tailored as needed.

Overview of the PCP R&D Processes

The PCP R&D Processes consists of four levels:

PCP R&D Process Organization

The process organization includes the following groups/roles:

OpEx Steering Committee

• Set the strategy for the R&D process development and focus points
• Has final authority to decide on escalation items
• Follow up on Process Owners and increment commitment

Process Coordinator

• Chairman of the PRO meeting
• Manage the PCR backlog and process improvements
• Follow up/Support of Process owner
• Coordinate process demos and process training

Process Owner

• Manage the respective process with the help of a process team
• Follow up on how the process is perceived in the organization
• Prioritize and drive PCRs
• Participate in regular PRO meetings
• Prepare and execute process demo

Quality Control Manager

• Support Process coordinator and Process owners
• Support Stream/Release set up and tailoring of the processes
• Check and report process adherence

PCR Escalation ladder

• PCP R&D Management
• OpEx SteCo
• PRO Sync meeting
• Process team

PCP R&D Management is the highest authority in R&D, for cross-cutting issues over many organizational functions please refer to PCP PMO or PCP BMS teams.

Process Information Structure

Process Level	OnePoint	PCP R&D Processes	DMS	Stream Wikis
WHY Policies	-Policies/instructions -PCP R&D Org. Charts -Process Governance	-PCP R&D principles		No policies allowed in stream wikis
WHAT High-Level Processes	-Process overview -No processes	-Process architecture -High-level processes -Roles		No high-level R&D processes are allowed in stream wikis
WHY Procedures & Guides		-Guidelines (Conceptual, How-to)		Stream guidelines can replace R&D guidelines – deviations documented in the Quality Plan and agreed upon with the Stream Owner and Quality Manager.
HOW Tools & Templates		-Link to templates	Templates	Stream templates in local storage

Process Communication

• Process demos
  • They are decided and organized by R&D Process Owners based on process changes and requests.
• Process training
  • The PCP R&D Basic Training is provided as an online training in ABB MyLearning. All employees working in assignments governed by the PCP R&D Processes shall attend the training every 5th year.
  • If possible, align and coordinate training with overall PCP process training.
  • Cluster leads are responsible for identifying training needs on all levels (with input from Release Owners and Stream Owners).
  • Training is planned in a training plan and performed training documented in the training log by management.
• Communication of process updates
  • "PCP R&D Processes" is baselined quarterly, and information about changes is published
  • A summary is provided to R&D OpEx management and Process Owners for distribution

Process Changes and Impact on Ongoing Releases

• The latest "PCP R&D Processes" version is always valid and applicable, otherwise, changes should be described in the Quality Plan for each project.

Process Changes, safeguarding process integrity

• Selected Process Owners, acting as process guardians, are notified of every new pull request (PR)
• Process guardians evaluate proposed changes, ensure alignment with ABB policies and compliance with impacted standards, and escalate for further approval when needed
• They ensure structural consistency and adherence to style guidelines

Process Tailoring

Why do Process Tailoring?

• Since different products/streams require a different way of working e.g., coding guidelines and test frameworks,

What is in Scope for Process Tailoring

• Policies and high-level processes are generally mandatory and not in scope (some processes can include variants, e.g., safety or not)
• Guidelines and tools can be either mandatory or optional with various alternatives. The non-mandatory part is the main part of what is tailorable.
• Tailoring often involves defining/adjusting activities, artifacts, and roles on a low level. Tailoring of tools can include tool selection or adjusting templates in an existing tool

Roles involved in Process Tailoring

• The tailoring will be initiated by experts in the streams/releases
• The QCM shall be involved at least as a reviewer, and it is recommended to involve the PRO
• For stream tailoring the Stream Owner approves
• For release tailoring, SteCo approves

Where to document the Process Tailoring

• Long term, stream tailoring will be documented in the Stream's Quality plan, and details for the releases in their release plans
• Short term, everything will be documented in the Quality Plan for the release

Ensuring process relevance through regular reviews

Regular updates and reviews are essential to keep information accurate, current, and relevant. The process core team monitors process descriptions, and if a process page remains unchanged for three years, the process group will be required to review and update it to ensure its accuracy and relevance.

PCP R&D Process Change Request

It is the responsibility and expectation that everyone can give input to improve the PCP R&D Processes. The mechanism for this is handled through a "Process Change Request" (PCR).

1. Talk to Process Owner Contact the relevant process owner to discuss the issue to filter inappropriate PCRs, and to prepare Process Owners for coming PCRs.

2. Document PCR The PCR shall identify the item (webpage or document) and shall contain a title, description, and priority. E.g. the change might impact a high-level process, a template, and a process training. The description shall include a motivation/problem statement with expected change and impacted document name/ID/rev. Finally, the PCR shall be assigned to a process team.

3. Evaluate PCR The assigned process team makes a first review of the PCR and adds a comment about the suggested solution and time frame. The process team adds:

   a. Acceptance Criteria - describe the acceptance criteria for the change
   b. Cyber security impact – is the change impacting cyber security, involve CSE if in doubt
   c. Safety impact - is the change request impacting safety, involve SE if in doubt

4. Accept PCR The process team accepts/rejects the PCR. If the PCR is impacting more than one process team it is assigned to the Process Coordinator who decides on who and how to drive the change.

5. Perform process change The changes are performed by the process team or another appointed person. It is a good practice to involve the initiator of the change request and other stakeholders to ensure the solution will be accepted in the review.

6. Review and approve process change The process change must be reviewed by relevant stakeholders (including respective PRO and experts as identified in point 3 and according to RACI in Quality & KPIs). After approval, the QMS is updated. (either through a pull request completion in the QMS, or a document update in the document management system).

7. Communicate process change How to communicate a process change is often set under "evaluation" (step 3). All process changes are logged and communicated each quarter. For larger changes, a process demo is performed and for very important changes it is communication through the line organization.

References

• How-to Create Process Change Requests
• Quality & KPIs