COMPASS Functionality

COMPASS functions enable a wide variety of potential uses.
Highlights of COMPASS include:

Assessment Planning

Selection of the maturity model and the assessment scope (observed process areas and maximum maturity level)
Acquiring of general assessment information
Acquiring and management of projects and personnel involved in the assessment as well as interview sessions

Assessment Execution

Acquiring and management of observations, document references and measures
Typing and status assignments of observations dependant on the assessment method
Assignment of observations, document references and measures to the practices of maturity models
Simple handling of observations and document references by moving, copying and multiple assignments as well as marking as a “Finding”
Ability to access documents directly via document references
Full text search to look for specific observations and document references
Filter function for selecting observations according to various criteria

Assessment Evaluation

Assignment of ratings based on the particular assessment method
Automatic recommended ratings, provided that suitable algorithms are defined in the assessment method
Extensive reporting options, model-specific reports
Export of reports to MS Word, MS Excel, PDF and other formats

Special Functions

PIID Creation
COMPASS supports PIID creation in the SCAMPI^SM method. The large number of direct and indirect artifacts are captured as document references with associated explanations, and they are managed with transparency and traceability.
Interview Mode
Observations are acquired in a quick and uncomplicated way in an interview. Only one mouse click is needed per observation – or none if working with keyboard shortcuts. Information that remains static for the duration of an interview is entered once at the beginning of the interview and is inherited by all observations.
Split/Merge Mechanisms
Generally an assessment is performed by multiple assessors or an assessment team. This makes it necessary to process different sections of the assessment in parallel by multiple users.
COMPASS supports parallel processing of different assessment sections by means of convenient Split and Merge mechanisms. The assessment can be split up either by process or by project. Merging of the assessment sections is user-controlled, and any conflicts that might occur can be resolved interactively.