I'm confused about whether a Lead Appraiser can be our consultant. What gives?

Dear CMMI Appraiser, you did great job leading our CMMI Training last month.  Unfortunately, some of us are still confused about the roles of the CMMI consultant.  Can my CMMI consultant also be my CMMI Lead Apppraiser? ~ Pal

Paul, it was great to have you in the CMMI Training, and thanks your follow-up question.

Yes, there is a lot of confusion around the roles of CMMI consultant and Lead Appraiser.  The truth is, anybody who knows how to spell “CMMI” can claim to be a CMMI consultant (and do!).  As a result, many companies think they are hiring CMMI consultants, but in fact they are hiring contractors, folks who may not qualified to even be on the appraisal team, let alone be Lead Appraiser.

You would not believe the pretzels some of these clowns have turned their customers into!

This problem is so common that even some “real” CMMI consultants can get confused over the issue.  

Several times I’ve heard CMMI consultants, who are not Lead Appraisers, tell their clients, “The SEI will not allow you to do this!  You need to have a separate person play the roles of Lead Appraiser and CMMI Consultant.”  Not True!

Hint #1: Anyone who says "The SEI will not allow . . . " is a putz.

So to answer your question with authority, Paul, yes: Your CMMI consultant can also be your Lead Appraiser – with a few caveats.   There is no specific rule stating that the roles have to be separated. However, it is widely understood that the kind of consulting they do as a consultant has an impact on whether or not they can also be your Lead Appraiser.

To understand the differences, consider what people can provide in their roles:

1. Lead Appraisers (who also act as consultants) can:

·       Teach you how to deploy processes

·       Teach you to use methods like AgileCMMI that help you create processes

·       Help you guide your program

·       Facilitate strategic decisions

·       Build consensus amongst executive in the business

·       Convince your executives to take appropriate action 

·       Help put a communications strategy together and execute it

·       Conduct training

·       Motivate your management and engineers to reach for great behaviors

2. True CMMI Consultants

·       Facilitate discussions

·       Build consensus

·       Manage groups of people and conversations

·       Help you communicate with your executives

·       Clear the path for the future so you can be successful 

·       Judge whether people are using the process effectively

·       Belong on the CMMI Appraisal Team

3. Contractors

·       Perform tasks at the direction of their customer

·       Call themselves consultants, but aren’t because they are defacto employees

·       Work inside the client’s company every day and don’t see what the rest of world does

·       Act like employees, writing the client’s processes

·       Do not belong on the appraisal team because they shouldn’t judge their own work

Think of it this way: CMMI Lead Appraisers will put your company on the path to greatness.  CMMI consultants may or may not.  And CMMI contractors cannot.

Unfortunately, it’s not always easy to tell the difference at first.  There are those who position themselves as experts, but give bad advice.  The worst are those who tell companies that they can just ‘get the certificate.’  These folks miss the point entirely.  They may help your company get the paper, but you won’t get the value.  You should stay away from these people!

The right kind of CMMI consultants, on the other hand, know what it takes to get the most value, and can help you reach for it.  They can be effective both as your Lead Appraiser and as appraisal team members.

Stop back again with any questions, Paul.  It’s inspiring to see your team take on the challenge of becoming a great company.

Jeff Dalton is a Certified SCAMPI Lead Appraiser, Certified CMMI Instructor, Candidate SCAMPI Appraiser Observer, author, and consultant with years of real-world experience with the CMMI in all types of organizations.  Jeff has taught thousands of students and has received an aggregate satisfaction score of 4.97 out of 5 from his students.

Is it possible to use the CMMI Dev model on projects that start and finish within 2 to 3 months?

Good Afternoon- is it possible to use the CMMI Dev model on projects that start and finish within 2 to 3 months?  It seems like a lot of work and documentation efforts to use the model for a 60 or 90 day effort?

If these are the only type of projects we have for an appraisal- will that suffice?

What a great question!  If I had a nickel for every time I got this I'd . . . well, I'd probably still be posting on this blog :)

YES YES YES!!!  Did I say YES?

I often start conference speeches with a slide that says "If you only remember one thing . . . "  and then I go on to joke about how it's a good time to stay awake - even if it's right after lunch - because I'm about to say something REALLY IMPORTANT!

CMMI Appraisals are NOT about documents!!!!  Documents are merely one method for verifying process performance.  And the amount of documents (number, size, and scope) should reflect the needs of your projects.  If you took a CMMI Training course and you "learned" that the CMMI was about documents - go ask for your money back!

The hardest part about CMMI is the lack of imagination adopters sometimes have.  You don't need a big, massive document - sometimes "just-enough" is the right amount.

Ask yourself the question (honestly): what makes sense for my organization?  This might be harder than you think.  

Here's an actual exchange I've had with a client:

CLIENT: "We heard your message about only producing documentation that makes sense for us.  We've thought about it, and we don't think we need to write requirements down.  It doesn't seem useful.  Can we be Level three?"

ME: "Hmm.  OK, maybe.  Say, what happened on this one project that was really late?"

CLIENT: "Oh, THAT one.  What a pain in the neck!  The customer kept adding things, and then they changed their mind, and the main guy retired, and then no one could remember what they wanted.  We really lost our shirt on that one!"

ME: "Really?  I'm shocked."

If you have simple, short-term projects, you may have very few documents.  You might use a Scrum board, photos of white-board designs, and some basic process descriptions to manage your work.  You might record important technical decisions in code, you might trace requirements using a simple indexing scheme.

If you're building the space shuttle (or disassembling it I guess now . . . ), you know already that more documents would be "sufficient."

As a Lead Appraiser, it's my job to first understand your context, and make decisions about "sufficiency" based on what your projects really need.  I'll admit, some LA's find this more difficult than others, but most of us are pretty flexible (if yours isn't . . . keep looking!).

I recommend a "document diet" to all my clients.   Proactively identify "must have" work products, and identify some "optional" work products that you would really like to see people use because they are useful to manage the project, design systems, or share information.   You might be surprised with what you end up with.

Good luck!

Jeff Dalton is a Certified SCAMPI Lead Appraiser, Certified CMMI Instructor, Candidate SCAMPI Appraiser Observer, author, and consultant with years of real-world experience with the CMMI in all types of organizations.  Jeff has taught thousands of students and has received an aggregate satisfaction score of 4.97 out of 5 from his students.

Learn more about great CMMI Consultants at www.broadswordsolutions.com/consulting

www.broadswordsolutions.com

When was CMMI v1.3 Released?

Dear Appraiser,

I need to know when CMMI v1.3 was released.  What's the deal?

You would think that was a simple question!  But as you might expect from our dear friends at the SEI, they have thought of many different variables.

CMMI v1.3 was released in the fall of 2010, but you can still use CMMI v1.2 until November 2011.  SCAMPI v1.3 wasn't released until March 2011, and you can use SCAMPI v1.2 until March 2012.

Soooooo.... that means, for now, you can conduct a CMMI v1.2 appraisal using SCAMPI v1.2 OR SCAMPI 1.3, or you could conduct a CMMI v1.3 Appraisal against either SCAMPI v1.3 OR SCAMPI v1.2.   At least until November!  Got it?

Maybe this picture will help . . .

Jeff Dalton is a Certified SCAMPI Lead Appraiser, Certified CMMI Instructor, Candidate SCAMPI Appraiser Observer, author, and consultant with years of real-world experience with the CMMI in all types of organizations.  Jeff has taught thousands of students and has received an aggregate satisfaction score of 4.97 out of 5 from his students.

Learn more about great CMMI Consultants at www.broadswordsolutions.com/consulting

www.broadswordsolutions.com

We need CMMI training ASAP! Where can I find it?

Dear Appraiser,


We need to learn everything there is to know about CMMI Training ASAP!  Where can we get this training?  We want something a little more than a "lecture."

Everything there is to know?  I'm not sure ANY training class would get you there :)  But maybe I can help.

The "Introduction to CMMI" course is an excellent course for anyone who is tasked with, or interested in, transforming their organization into a high-performing, lean, and productive team.  Beginning with the WHY to use CMMI, then followed by the WHAT you need to do, and finally the HOW to do it, the Intro to CMMI class is a great beginning for any project manager, engineer, software developer, line manager, analyst, tester, or process or quality professional.

You could take the course at the SEI, but you might consider taking from an SEI Partner, like Broadsword Solutions Corporation (www.broadswordsolutions.com).  They'll fill in the gaps with stories, examples, exercises, and case studies as they go - based on their real-world experience.  They even cover CMMI and Agile.

Boadsword just happens to be running one of these "Introduction to CMMI" Training classes November 2nd-4th in Troy Michigan on the campus of Central Michigan University.  You can register at www.broadswordsolutions.com.

Good luck - and enjoy your class!

We want our consultant on our Appraisal team - but our Lead Appraiser says it's a conflict. Is it?

Our lead appraiser says it’s a conflict of interest for our consultant to be on our appraisal team.  We want him on there.  Is that true?  ~ Blain Y.

Blain, in a recent post, I addressed the issue of who can be on your appraisal team, but the topic bears further discussion.  The answer is: It depends.

On the one hand, your CMMI consultant absolutely should be on the appraisal team, assuming they truly are CMMI consultants.  If so, they are probably skilled at facilitation, consensus building, managing groups of people and conversations.  They can advise you, manage you, help you communicate with your executives, and clear the path for the future so you can be successful. 

Those are attributes you want on your appraisal team.  Someone who can bring those consulting skills to an intense data analysis process is very welcome.

On the other hand, CMMI contractors who THINK they are CMMI consultants should not be on the team.

As I said in my last post, most people who call themselves consultants are really contractors. 

You can tell what they are by the role they play: Contractors, along with regular employees, are involved in writing documents or creating processes.  This is proper.  You don’t want someone from the outside to do that.  You want that done internally, because you are the only one who can really know what works for you.

But it’s incorrect to call them consultants.  We see this too often with offshore companies.  They send what they call consultants, and we call contractors.  You have to be clear that, when they send you contractors, you should not pay them, or listen to them, like consultants.  And you may not want to allow them on the appraisal team.

In this case, your Lead Appraiser would be correct to leave the contractor off the appraisal team.  It is a conflict of interest to have the writer of processes evaluate those processes.  However, if the person you want on the team really is a CMMI consultant, you are probably correct to want him on the Appraisal Team.

Jeff Dalton is a Certified SCAMPI Lead Appraiser, Certified CMMI Instructor, Candidate SCAMPI Appraiser Observer, author, and consultant with years of real-world experience with the CMMI in all types of organizations.  Jeff has taught thousands of students and has received an aggregate satisfaction score of 4.97 out of 5 from his students.

Learn more about great CMMI Consultants at www.broadswordsolutions.com.www.broadswordsolutions.com/consulting

Our Appraisal expires in December. Can we get an extension?

Dear Appraiser,


Our CMMI Maturity Level Three appraisal expires on December 21st, 2011.  We're not going to be ready to conduct our re-appraisal by that date.  Can we request an 'extension' on the appraisal expiration date from the SEI? ~ Bill.


Bill, first of all, who the heck was your appraisal sponsor, the GRINCH?  A December 21st appraisal?  What's he going to do next, steal your laptops and make you all use slide rules?  Bah Hambug!


Your holiday-ruining boss aside, there is unfortunately no way you can "extend" your appraisal.  If you don't complete it by December 21st, it will be over - kaput, nada, disappear....like it never happened! (well, not really that bad . . . ).  But it will disappear from the SEI's PARS system on that day.


If you were my client I would start by asking you why you are conducting the appraisal to begin with.  If you're using CMMI to make your company a great company, then conducting a CMMI appraisal when you're not ready is just counter-productive.  Focus on being great, and the maturity level will come.


If you "need the rating" to bid on work for your company, then you'll have a short period where you will not be able to do that - good incentive to get your act together!


If you need to keep the rating to keep business you already have - well, I would advise to get moving and bring in some industrial strength help from someone like Broadsword.


Amazing as it sounds, I've had good luck just "talking" to customers about the delay.  "Talking" is something we used to do in my youth, where it was more difficult for people to avoid accountability and make ridiculous demands because they had to interact with the person who knows they're full of it - instead of an impersonal email.    Call them and tell them what's going on - you'll probably be surprised with their willingness to work with you.


But if not - it's time to get moving!  Good luck!

Jeff Dalton is a Certified SCAMPI Lead Appraiser, Certified CMMI Instructor, Candidate SCAMPI Appraiser Observer, author, and consultant with years of real-world experience with the CMMI in all types of organizations.  Jeff has taught the Introduction to CMMI class to thousands of students and has received an aggregate satisfaction score of 4.97 out of 5 from his students.

If you need an appraiser, you can contact Jeff at appraiser@broadswordsolutions.com

Learn more about CMMI maturity levels at www.broadswordsolutions.com