Reason #3 to attend SEPG 2013: To Gain Control

The #3 Reason to Attend SEPGNA: To help you gain control

The afternoon shadows are growing longer.  Cool breezes are starting to blow.  This must mean it’s almost time for the industry’s premier CMMI Conference, SEPG NorthAmerica 2013 on October 1-2 in Pittsburgh, PA!

If you’ve just joined us, I’ve been counting down my list of Top 10 Reasons to attend SEPGNA.  Over the years, I have had so many highly useful experiences at SEPGNA, and have seen so many organizations receive value, it’s been tough to pare them down.  But now we’ve arrived at the final three.

Drum roll, please!  Reason #3 is …

To help you gain control.

Given this year’s high powered line-up of speakers, workshops and events, SEPGNA 2013 promises to be another excellent opportunity to come together and talk about continuous improvement and making our teams more productive using the CMMI.  I’m looking forward to hearing about real-life issues that organizations are facing every day in their quest to be a great company.

Like what?

By all indications, the biggest problem many companies are STILL facing is a lack of control over process.  They are dealing with late projects, over-budget projects, unpredictable results and unhappy customers.  In many cases, they have made small improvements, but nothing has given them greater control for the long-term.

Does that sound familiar?

If so, I can promise you, you’ll have your eyes opened up at SEPGNA.  This year, the sharpest minds in the industry will be discussing how to maximize the impact and business results of CMMI and performance improvement.  You’ll get new ideas for applying best practices for adopting the CMMI as a tool that can help you set up an environment that makes improvement possible.  And you’ll have the opportunity to discuss strategies with other leaders who learned to leverage the CMMI to establish a useful level of control over their process.

Great companies know that the key to process improvement and performance innovation is to know how you know the process works.  A proper adoption of the CMMI can give you data about that.  It can show you how the process is performing, whether you are getting the results you expected, and how you can make it better.

Why is this true?  Because the CMMI is a framework for life-long learning.  It helps you learn about yourself, your company and the way you do your work.  And there are practices within the CMMI that can help you apply what you’ve learned to make it even better.

The value of a great conference like SEPGNA is that it helps you learn about keeping these things in mind, so that you always know how things are going and how they can be made better.

So join us.  Online registration for SEPGNA is closed, but you can still sign up on site on October 1st.

If you want more reasons to go, please check back soon for Reason #2.

Jeff Dalton is President of Broadsword Solutions Corporation  and Chair of the CMMI Institute’s Partner Advisory Board.  

Reason #4 to attend SEPG North America 2013

The #4 Reason to Attend SEPGNA: To spend quality time with your customers

The days are getting shorter.  The nights are getting cooler.  And the opportunity to register online for SEPG North America 2013 – the CMMI Conference – is fading fast.

Still haven’t decided to come?  Then this post is for you.  Over the past few weeks, I’ve been counting down my list of Top 10 Reasons to attend SEPG North America 2013 on October 1-2 in Pittsburgh, 

PA.  Today we’ve arrived at Reason #4.

Drum roll, please!  Reason #4 is …

To spend quality time with your customers.

We all know that one secret to success in business is building strong relationships with the customer.  This is especially true in the context of the CMMI, where we are focused on helping companies learn the proper approach to the CMMI, drive Process Improvement, and be the great companies they are striving to be.

If you are a CMMI practitioner or CMMI supplier, the CMMI Conference is more than an opportunity to acquire knowledge that can help you be a better resource for your customers.  It’s a rare chance for you to spend quality time with them off-site in a dedicated learning environment.  So consider the following question as a personal challenge:

Will you take the opportunity to build stronger relationships with your customers by bringing them to SEPGNA 2013?

As part of my commitment to the CMMI, I always invite my customers to the Conference.  Last year, I brought six companies.  The year before, I brought five.  Here’s why I am encouraging my fellow CMMI Institute Partners, consultants and suppliers to do so, as well:

SEPGNA allows you to spend quality time with your customers.  So often in our day-to-day work, we are on-site to solve problems.  There are subgroups to be evaluated and artifacts to be collected.  But during the 2-day Conference in Pittsburgh, you’ll be able to connect with your customers on a personal level.  You’ll eat together, attend sessions together and – with networking events scheduled for both evenings – you’ll be able to hang out and just talk.

SEPGNA allows you to guide your customers through the learning process.  Think about it.  Would you rather have your customers try to grasp the real meaning of the CMMI on their own, or with you by their side?  Would you rather leave them in the dark about the long-term value the Model provides, or help them see the light?  Clearly, you want to be there in the sessions with them.  You want to ask them about what they are learning.  And when questions inevitably come up, you want to be right there to answer with real-live examples from their current projects.

SEPGNA allows you to introduce your customers to the leaders of the CMMI Institute, as well as other adopters of the CMMI.  For me, this is one of the most rewarding experiences at the SEPGNA.  I love to see new friendships form when I connect my customers to others who have overcome the same problems they’ve been facing.  Plus, this will be my first opportunity to introduce several of my customers to the smart folks from the CMMI Institute, the new sponsors of the Conference this year.

In my opinion, missing the chance to invite customers to SEPGNA would be a mistake.  You’d only get half the value.  Sure, you’ll learn plenty of strategies, tips and techniques that can make you a better CMMI consultant or CMMI supplier.  But you will have bypassed the opportunity to integrate customers with each other, so that they can have a support system of their own.  And that would be to deprive them of something extremely valuable that they can’t get anywhere else.

Besides, as I said in a previous post, Pittsburgh ROCKS!  You and your customers are going to have a blast together.  What could be better for your relationship?

So let’s be generous.  Let’s share the love.  I urge each of you to invite at least one customer to come to Pittsburgh and take part in the conversation.  And don’t forget to register here.

Need more reasons to go?  Check back soon for Reason #4.

Jeff Dalton is President of Broadsword Solutions Corporation  and Chair of the CMMI Institute’s Partner Advisory Board.  

Why are customers asking us to adopt the CMMI?

Dear CMMI Appraiser – our biggest customer wants all of their providers to “look into the CMMI.” I don’t understand why they think this is important. In your experience, why do customers ask their vendors to adopt the CMMI? ~ Bill P.

Bill, as you look into the CMMI, one of the things you’ll discover is that the CMMI is the tool for driving process improvement and performance innovation across organizations. This is probably the reason your customer is asking you to look into the CMMI – but don’t be insulted. Being told you can improve is not necessarily a bad thing.

Let me tell you a story.

Once upon a time, there was a large company. They were good, but not great. One of the company’s executives, Xavier, knew that they could be a great company, and wanted to inspire his suppliers to help him get there. So he issued them a challenge.

These suppliers were alike in nearly every way. They built their products with cumbersome, poorly understood processes, which were largely ignored, cost more, produced lower quality and made people unhappy. Everyone was losing.

“I’m tired of this,” Xavier said to his top suppliers. “I want everyone to look into getting CMMI certified.”

Upon hearing the request, the companies’ leaders all Googled “CMMI Certified” and “CMMI Maturity Level 3,” and quickly found out about SEPGNA, the industry’s premier software process improvement conference. Fortunately for them, this year’s SEPGNA was coming up. Unfortunately, for them, they assumed it wasn’t worth their time.

Everyone, that is, but Bob. Bob was intrigued by the idea of becoming a better partner to Xavier by making his company better, so he signed up for SEPGNA.

At the SEPG CMMI Conference, Bob found himself in the company of hundreds of professionals from around the world who had come to learn, network and explore solutions to their performance problems. Bob started thinking and talking about using the Model for process improvement and performance innovation. He heard first-hand accounts from CMMI Users who were experiencing much better quality, increased productivity and fewer project delays. His mind started to open to the possibility that, when properly adopted, the CMMI could put his company on the path to greatness – but he also became aware that there were far too many examples of companies that pursued CMMI adoption just to get a “CMMI certificate,” and failed.

As soon as he returned to the office, Bob called Xavier and said, “We took your advice about the CMMI. We are going to adopt the Model.”

“So you decided to get CMMI Certified?” Xavier asked.

Bob smiled. Thanks to the conversations he'd had at the conference, he understood that you can’t transform a culture by going out and getting certificates. He knew that, when you put a “certification” mindset around getting better, it drives the wrong kind of behaviors, and you miss the point of the CMMI entirely.  But he comprehended what Xavier meant.

“Yes, a CMMI Maturity Level Rating will come at the end of our successful appraisal journey,” Bob said. “But the real reason we want to adopt the Model is not to get a certificate or plaque. Instead, we want to get the most value of the CMMI, which comes from the transformation of the culture of our company. See, when properly adopted, the CMMI will help us change the way we behave, so that we build great products for you, and help you reach your goals.”

Xavier said, “I look forward to working with you more.”

The moral of the story?

Your clients want you to be better for reasons that should inspire you to want to be better. The reason they think it’s important because it IS important.

So be like Bob. Educate yourself. Go to conferences; read blogs; participate in Webinars – and talk to your customers about what they can expect from you. You’ll find that adopting the CMMI for the right reasons is a win-win.

It’s not too late to sign up for SEPGNA 2013! Register here. 

Jeff Dalton is a Certified SCAMPI Lead Appraiser, Certified CMMI Instructor, ScrumMaster, author, and consultant with years of real-world experience with the CMMI in all types of organizations. Jeff pioneered agileCMMI, the leading methodology for incremental and iterative process improvement. He has taught thousands of students in CMMI trainings and has received an aggregate satisfaction score of 4.97 out of 5 from his students.

Visit www.broadswordsolutions.com for more information about engineering strategy, performance innovation , software process improvement and running a successful CMMI program.

To download eBooks about CMMI, visit Jeff’s Author Page on Amazon.

The #5 Reason to Attend SEPGNA: To learn new ways to improve

It’s almost here! On October 1-2, many of the greatest companies in the world will be in Pittsburgh, PA for SEPG North America, our industry’s premier event on Process Improvement and the CMMI. To help you make an informed decision about whether to attend, I have been counting down the Top Ten Reasons to go. Today I bring you Reason #5.

Drum roll, please! Reason #5 is …

To learn new ways to improve.

If there’s one thing I truly love about our industry, it’s that we all seem to share a burning desire for continuous improvement. Even those who are already successful in their careers, and those who are already a part of great companies, are constantly seeking out ways to get even better. So it only makes sense that we would gather every year at the CMMI Conferences (a/k/a “The Greatest Show on Earth”) to increase our knowledge and expand our networks.

Yes, SEPGNA is the place for our industry to gather and learn new ways to improve. This year’s conference sponsor, the CMMI Institute, has introduced a broad range of new learning experiences, such as rapid-fire plenary sessions, designed to give maximum content in minimum time, as well as keynote speeches, track presentations, hands-on workshops, informal conversations, structured social events and more.

Who will be there? The Conference is for CMMI adopters and CMMI practitioners – software, services, and engineering professionals just like you and me. We are all drawn by a desire to maximize the impact and business results of CMMI and Performance Improvement, and to learn even more effective ways to get better at what we do.

If you’ve attended SEPGNA in the past, you’ll find this year’s event to be even faster, more interactive, and more focused on YOU, the end user. If this will be your first time, prepare to have your horizons expanded by two excellent Plenary Speakers: John Fraser, COO of ASM Research, and David Anderson, the author of Kanban: Successful Evolutionary Change for your Technology Business, and many other great presentations from the top thought leaders in the industry.

So here’s the deal. You’ll learn from industry experts who will be speaking and coaching. You’ll network with other professionals like yourself for the 25th year of this popular and powerful event, folks who are facing the same challenges you are. And you’ll discover how to apply best practices, tips and techniques for adopting the CMMI, and getting even better at what you are ALREADY doing. What’s not to love?

Oh – one more thing. Be sure to check out “Coaching Café,” a place where you can meet informally with industry leaders and CMMI Institute partners to get answers to your most pressing CMMI questions. The Coaching Café is just one of the many improvements to the conference this year, and I’m really looking forward to it!

It’s all happening in Pittsburgh on October 1-2. But it won’t be the same without YOU. Register here.

Need more reasons to go? Check back soon for Reason #4.

Like this blog? Forward to your nearest engineering or software exec!

Jeff Dalton is a Certified SCAMPI Lead Appraiser, Certified CMMI Instructor, ScrumMaster, author, and consultant with years of real-world experience with the CMMI in all types of organizations. Jeff pioneered agileCMMI, the leading methodology for incremental and iterative process improvement. He has taught thousands of students in CMMI trainings and has received an aggregate satisfaction score of 4.97 out of 5 from his students.

Visit www.broadswordsolutions.com for more information about engineering strategy, performance innovation , software process improvement and running a successful CMMI program.

To download eBooks about CMMI, visit Jeff’s Author Page on Amazon.

The #7 Reason to Attend SEPGNA: Pittsburgh Rocks!

It’s hard to believe, but this year’s CMMI Conference is mere weeks away! For those who haven’t decided to register yet, I hope to give you something to think about with my Top 10 Reasons for being in Pittsburgh for SEPG North America on October 1-2. As a long-time attendee of our industry’s Greatest Show On Earth, I have many reasons to love SEPGNA.  Today we’re down to Reason #7.

Drum roll, please! Reason #7 is …

Pittsburgh Rocks!

If you’ve attended in the past, you know that a different city hosts SEPG North America conference each year. In recent years, we’ve been to Portland, Tampa, Savannah, and Albuquerque. This year, the 25th annual SEPG North America conference returns home to where it all began – Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

If you haven’t explored Pittsburgh in a while, you are in for a treat!

Before and after your busy day of learning and networking at the conference, here are some happenin’ experiences you can sample around the City of Bridges:

PNC Park, often called America’s best ballpark, is just across the Allegheny River from the convention center. http://espn.go.com/page2/s/ballparks/pncpark.html

Kayak Pittsburgh is a great spot for renting a kayak for an hour and paddling the three rivers. http://www.kayakpittsburgh.org/locations/northshore

Heinz History Center, also an easy walk from the convention center, is where history buffs can view new exhibits about Pennsylvania in the Civil War and pay tribute to the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg. http://www.heinzhistorycenter.org

The Strip District is where to find the hottest night life in Pittsburgh. Be sure to visit Wigle Whiskey, Pittsburgh’s first legal distillery since prohibition, named for a leader of the Pennsylvania Whiskey Rebellion. Tours are available. https://www.wiglewhiskey.com

Downtown Pittsburgh has been transformed over the past decade. A short walk from the convention center to the Cultural District brings you to the August Wilson Center http://www.augustwilsoncenter.org/, which offers six art galleries, all free and open to the public http://www.trustarts.org/visualarts/galleries/. Also check out The Cabaret at Theater Square, which always has a fun show playing: http://trustarts.org/visit/facilities/cabaret.

Market Square http://marketsquarepgh.com has the best dining and drinking in town! The market is home to approximately 30 restaurants, including Pittsburgh’s famous Primanti Brothers (sandwiches with the fries on top) http://primantibros.com/home.html

Little E’s Jazz Club is my favorite spot in town for live music. The downtown club/restaurant has a fully stocked bar and restaurant menu (try the Catfish sandwich!), and performances every night. Tell ‘em Jeff sent you!

Oh, there’s one more thing to make it easy to explore the area. All SEPG Attendees will get an Urbanist Pittsburgh map, which includes some of these suggestions and many others: http://pittsburgh.urbanistguide.com

So come on out for the great learning experience, powerful conversations and ample opportunities to form partnerships — and dig that happenin’ Pittsburgh scene! Register here.

Like this blog? Forward to your nearest engineering or software exec!

Jeff Dalton is a Certified SCAMPI Lead Appraiser, Certified CMMI Instructor, ScrumMaster, author, and consultant with years of real-world experience with the CMMI in all types of organizations. Jeff pioneered agileCMMI, the leading methodology for incremental and iterative process improvement. He has taught thousands of students in CMMI trainings and has received an aggregate satisfaction score of 4.97 out of 5 from his students.

Visit www.broadswordsolutions.com for more information about engineering strategy, performance innovation , software process improvement and running a successful CMMI program.

To download eBooks about CMMI, visit Jeff’s Author Page on Amazon.