Larry Jones of the SEI feels that the probe is the natural outcome of the framework development, and is valuable to organizations that are trying to adopt its practices. When you have a model of best practices, it makes sense to compare yourself to that model to see how you might improve. The result of the probe is a set of findings that portray an organization's strengths and challenges relative to its product line endeavors. These findings can then be used as a basis for improvement planning, with the goal of increasing the organization's capability for product line success. The data gathering phase follows, featuring structured interviews with small groups of organization members.
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The PLTP team poses to each peer group a set of questions, based on the practice areas described in the SEI PLP Framework. While the practice areas under consideration may be required for any software system, the product line context imposes its own set of constraints that must be specifically addressed. The scope of the question set is determined during the preparation phase. Different questions from this set may be posed based upon the job responsibilities of particular interview groups. The team may probe more deeply into certain areas to learn about specific strengths and challenges.