I am an IT student and have been working on team-based projects for several years. I have read some papers about CMMI and SCRUM, and this is really interesting to me and I would like to know what kind of jobs involve improving processes inside an organization.
What kind of studies can lead someone towards these jobs? Management? What's the idea? Management as a topic to be studied? And what other topics could be studied to lead to a job using such methodologies and frameworks?
CMMI, SCRUM and other methodologies or standards are generally implemented or touched be by the following departments:
In terms of organizations, companies that deal with the Federal Government, operate in a regulated environment or are in the supply chain of large multinationals tend to be most involved with setting and maintaining methodologies/standards.
Sometimes the move to standards and methodologies comes from the top, sometimes from the bottom.
Selecting the standard or methodology to be used by a company may be made prior to your hiring, therefore you will not have much of an opportunity to decide which one they will use. In order to become certified to these standards, a company must invest time and money to be audited. This reduces the opportunity to switch standards once the process has been completed.
As to what positions are involved in improving processes inside an organization, it could be any job. The goal is to have the processes of the organization formalized. This can only be done by the people in those positions.
If you want to be involved, you will have to get hired by a company that has this as a part of their culture. Another approach is to gain experience, and then become a process improvement consultant.
I would like to know what kind of jobs involve improving processes inside an organization.
In some organizations, especially those in industries that rely heavily on process and quality certifications, there will be process engineers and engineering process groups. From my own experiences in the defense industry, nearly every defense contractor has people who specialize in engineering process, as well as engineers from various disciplines that support ongoing process improvement.
What kind of studies can lead someone towards these jobs? Management? what's the idea? Management as a topic to be studied? And what other topics could be studied to lead to a job using such methodologies / frameworks?
I studied software engineering, emphasizing the engineering process and quality courses. I also minored in business management. Within the first 6 months of my first post-college job, I was already working on the engineering process group within my organization.
Some kind of business or engineering management background is probably useful, since many process improvement opportunities are a balance between maintaining or achieving a certification and the needs of the business. However, engineering process groups might not be just process specialists, but also contain those knowledgable in the business and engineering disciplines of the company, who serve to ensure that the processes in place work within the context of ongoing projects.
I would like to know what kind of jobs involve improving processes inside an organization.
On IT, almost (to don't say all) roles are related at some level to methodologies. Ideally, all roles would be 100% aware of what are the available methodologies, but that's another story...
What other topics could be studied to lead to a job using such methodologies / frameworks?
Being interested to methodologies / frameworks will always add value on your career. I don't believe, however, that there's a silver bullet like get used to Agile and you'll rock. So, I believe that the best way to get in touch with methodologies is what you're already doing, i.e., visiting forums like PMSE :)
If you browse through questions, you'll see a lot of very good discussions about n methodologies / frameworks. Do not bypass a specific question just because you're not aware of that topic. Instead, read it carefully and you'll be already studying!
(A question I'd add myself) Who's supposed to bring methodologies to the table?
If you're about to join a company with already well defined methodologies, you'll hit the ground running. On such cases, the methodology will come from Mark's (very well stated!) path;
If you're joining a company that's starting and is still living in a fuzzy environment, you'll be able to help your project suggesting and introducing best practices. Here, you'll have the opportunity to be the one adding value to the team / project company.
Success!
And I do not mean testing. Testing is Quality Control, while Quality Assurance (QC vs QA) is more broad area which includes everything you mentioned (establishing best practices such as CMMI, ISO, COBIT, etc) and is focused on software processes improvement (SPI) - not only testing, but also project management, release management, reporting, etc (full list of QA responsibilities is the list of CMMI process areas). And the most important thing comparatively to other position that might involve software process/quality improvements, QA Engineer has software processes and quality as its primary responsibility.
This has been cross-posted from P.SE
