itSMFA Bulletin February 2017 itSMFA 2017 February Bulletin | Page 12

SMPA Team members at presentation of
ACPHIS medal December 2016 (Left to right)
Professor Aileen Cater-Steel, Dr Anup
Shrestha and Professor Mark Toleman
Award-winning research at USQ has brought ITSM process assessment automation but the
automation won’t do away with trained professionals and a hybrid solution is more likely
to be the most optimal solution moving forward.
The Software-mediated Process Assessment (SMPA)
approach transparently automates the way process
assessments are conducted in IT organisations. The
transparency in process assessment is achieved due to
two features of the SMPA approach: (a) it follows the
international standards of process assessment ISO/IEC
15504 (currently being transformed into ISO/IEC 330xx
series); and (b) it uses a decision support system for
impartial measurement and recommendations for
process improvement. Using the SMPA approach, the
cloud-based assessment software collects assessment
data, measures process capability and provides process
improvement recommendations.
Since the Gershon report, all Australian government
agencies are required to assess their current ICT
infrastructure capability, identify a target capability level,
and develop a capability improvement plan. The SMPA
approach is valuable to government agencies to
provide a common methodology for self-assessments.
Private-sector organisations similarly benefit from the use
of SMPA. Process assessments traditionally require
12 itSMF Bulletin—February 2017
significant organisational resources in terms of cost and
time commitment. The SMPA approach not only saves
scarce resources but also enables organisations to
conduct repeated assessments for continual service
improvement.
The SMPA project has won an impressive line-up of
awards. Project team-member Anup Shrestha won the
Queensland iAward (Australian Industry Association (AIIA)
for best post-graduate student project and the Australian
Council of Professors in Information Systems (ACPHIS)
medal for the best PhD thesis.
Researchers at USQ teamed up with Assessment Portal
Pty Ltd to develop SMPA. The research was jointly
funded by the Australian Research Council and
Assessment Portal. The SMPA was developed and trialled
at two organisations: CITEC and Toowoomba Regional
Council (TRC).
The project team led by Professor Aileen Cater-Steel
included USQ’s Professor Mark Toleman and Dr Wui-Gee
Tan, along with IT standards expert Professor Terry Rout