Tuesday, October 31, 2017

Subscribe to my CMMI-TV YouTube channel!

Dear Readers,

Happy Halloween!

As you sit at home this evening, waiting for the trick-or-treaters to appear in their costumes at your door, here's a great way to spend the in-between time .... watching CMMI-TV on your phone!



Subscribe to my mobile-friendly CMMI-TV channel on YouTube at: http://www.youtube.com/asktheCMMIAppraiser

Enjoy the show, and have fun passing out the Halloween goodies!

ABOUT CMMI-TV: CMMI-TV is a place where we can add value to the engineering and software development community by offering advice on engineering strategy, performance innovation and software process improvement. If you find this useful, please forward to your nearest engineering or software exec!

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

Jeff Dalton is a Certified SCAMPI Lead Appraiser, Certified CMMI Instructor, author and consultant with years of real-world experience with the CMMI in all types of organizations. Jeff has taught thousands of students in CMMI training classes 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.

Wednesday, October 25, 2017

CMMI SCAMPI: where do we start?

Hey, CMMI Appraiser, 

One of our government customers has been urging us for years to adopt CMMI and do a SCAMPI A Appraisal.  Well, I’m not proud to say we have been putting it off. But now two other customers are saying we have to do this if we want to keep their business. OK, so, we’re ready! Where do we start? ~ Ryan S.


Ryan, one place to start would be to thank your customers for pushing you to be a great company. It sounds like they are trying to get you to do the things you’ve known you should do anyway. I suppose it's human nature to put up resistance at first. I notice the same dynamic with my personal fitness trainer – except your customer is paying you!



The personal trainer is a pretty good analogy. In many ways, the journey to adopting the CMMI is similar to the journey to becoming physically fit. Companies that choose to work with Broadsword go through a detailed progression on their way to CMMI Maturity Level 3, for instance, and put themselves on the path to becoming a great company.

There's an old adage that a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. To keep you moving in the right direction, here are the first five steps:

Step 1: Class C Appraisal (Gap Analysis) is first and foremost a way for your company to find out about itself and how your performance aligns with the CMMI model. It’s also an opportunity for your CMMI Appraiser to learn as much about your company as they can, and for your company to learn about the CMMI Appraiser. This is important because you will be spending a lot of time together, generally a year or two, making decisions that will have an serious impact on the behaviors of your people. And so, helping both sides feel more comfortable with each other is one of the most beneficial aspects of the SCAMPI C.

Step 2: Training – There are a number of training courses that need to take place on your journey to CMMI ML3. First is the Introduction to CMMIhttps://broadswordsolutions.com/products-and-services/training/ training course, followed by training on how to become expert process engineers. We teach you how to execute our AgileCMMI methodology, and how to design and develop processes. Your entire appraisal team goes through the training, plus anyone who plays a key leadership role in the company in terms of how they want the work performed, such as project managers, program leaders and line managers.

Step 3: Tune-up – After the Class C, and often concurrently with the training, we will provide you with a plan that identifies all the tuning up or development of processes that must occur in your company. The plan includes everything you need to do in the context of AgileCMMI, the Special Interest Groups (SIGs) to be created, as well as all of the releases and iterations that must take place between now and your SCAMPI B Appraisal.

Step 4: SCAMPI B – After you’ve done the training and the tune up, you are ready for the SCAMPI B Appraisal. The SCAMPI B is an formal appraisal that serves as a tool to give you the information you need to completely understand your current state in relation to the CMMI. It gives you the information you need to determine whether you will succeed in the formal SCAMPI A, as planned.

Step 5: SCAMPI A –After you’ve satisfactorily completed your SCAMPI B, you are ready for a formal SCAMPI A appraisal, and you’ll want do all you can to assure a positive result. If your SCAMPI A is successful, congratulations!

But don’t make the mistake of thinking you've arrived, and can just drop everything you’ve learned. To return to the fitness metaphor, once I’ve achieved my target weight, I don’t want to celebrate by eating a gooey chunk of chocolate cake. Getting in shape and becoming a CMMI Maturity Level 3 doesn’t make you a great company. It just means you are sufficiently equipped with the infrastructure and tools you need to become a great company. Whether or not you make the changes in your company – and make the commitment to long-term health as an organization – is up to you.

If you would like gain a deeper understanding of CMMI, we’ve just announced the dates for our next "Intro to CMMI-DEV" class (February 6-8, 2018), which includes an optional 1-day CMMI-SVC supplement. for CMMI-DEV (February 9, 2018). Join us in the Washington, DC area for a practical, fun, fast-paced and interactive classroom experience! Sign up here.

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

Jeff Dalton is a Certified SCAMPI Lead Appraiser, Certified CMMI Instructor, author and consultant with years of real-world experience with the CMMI in all types of organizations. Jeff has taught thousands of students in CMMI training classes 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.

Thursday, October 19, 2017

Pavlov’s Dog versus Schrodinger’s Cat

Dear Readers: This week we're lucky enough to have a new guest blogger - please welcome Eve Keller!  Eve is a Project Manager and has been a SCAMPI Appraisal Team Member.  She can be reached for comment or spirited debate at: slipperyshots@gmail.com.


Pavlov’s Dog versus Schrodinger’s Cat

I’m going to completely judge your prior knowledge of my subject matter with one joke: A man walks into a library, and says to the Librarian, “I'm looking for a book that's been recommended to me… It's about Pavlov’s Dogs and Schrodinger’s Cat… Do you know it?” The Librarian answers, “well, that rings a bell, but I'm not sure if it's here or not.”



In the early twentieth century, Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov did Nobel prize-winning work on digestion. Pavlov called the dogs' anticipatory salivation "psychic secretion", thus, proving Classical Conditioning. This created an automatic unlearned response. Wouldn’t you love your employees to have an automatic, and positive, unlearned response to systemic process methodology?

Well, we can’t talk about Pavlov without tipping our proverbial hat to B.F. Skinner. Skinner used experiments with mice to demonstrate Operant Conditioning: an association made between a behavior and a consequence. Skinner believed that effective teaching must be based on positive reinforcement which is more effective at changing and establishing behavior than punishment. Even if you really want to punish those that do not adopting CMMI, it won’t help much.
Beyond Pavlov and Skinner, a third type of learning directly affects culture in your organization. Observational learning is also called “vicarious conditioning” because it involves learning by watching others acquire responses through classical or operant conditioning. A new employee discerns your corporate culture and adapts to it by watching peers and leadership.


So, what about that cat? Schrodinger’s thought experiment demonstrated the influence of an observer in quantum mechanics. Will your company succeed with a SCAMPI A Appraisal or not? That must be observed consistently through your PPQA evaluation process. Providing positive reinforcement and modeling of the desired processes will touch each person in your organization. You will develop better people with intrinsic motivation, spreading to others naturally and gain bigger contracts that you can actually sustain.

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

Jeff Dalton is a Certified SCAMPI Lead Appraiser, Certified CMMI Instructor, author and consultant with years of real-world experience with the CMMI in all types of organizations. Jeff has taught thousands of students in CMMI training classes 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.

Tuesday, October 10, 2017

SPaMCast Interview: What would you change that is affecting agile leadership?

Jeff, if you woke up tomorrow morning, and somebody handed you your cup of coffee, a cup of tea, and a magic wand, and said, “You have the power to change any two things affecting leadership in Agile organizations. What would these two things be? ~ Tom Cagley, SPaMCast


[Editor's Note: During the past several weeks, this CMMI Appraiser has been sharing excerpts from a recent conversation with Tom Cagley on the Software Process and Measurement Cast (SPaMCast) about leadership, and whether leadership is more or less important in today’s Agile world. Today’s blog post is the final installment. Listen to the full interview at SPaMCast 456.]


Tom, the first thing I would do is I would bestow a complete understanding of the nine core Agile values on all leaders. I'd give them the ability to demonstrate them through the way they acted and the way they performed. That’s the first thing I would do.

The second thing I would do is give those Agile leaders an understanding of self-organization and the counter-intuitive nature of it, and to learn to trust the power of self-organization so that their teams and their organization underneath them can be successful. I would give them that trust of self-organization.

# # #

I hope my readers have enjoyed the transcribed version of my interview with Tom Cagley on SPaMCast #456. If you are interested in moving up in your organization that happens to be Agile, or are already leading an Agile organization, you are invited to take advantage of the free and open-space resources available at agilecxo.org, including “The Scrum Guide,” which you can use to help yourself understand how discipline can make Agile more powerful, as well as our model for agile leadership, the Agile Performance Holarchy.

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

Jeff Dalton is a Certified SCAMPI Lead Appraiser, Certified CMMI Instructor, author and consultant with years of real-world experience with the CMMI in all types of organizations. Jeff has taught thousands of students in CMMI training classes 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.

Tuesday, October 3, 2017

SPaMCast Interview: Is leadership more or less critical in agile organizations?

Jeff, when an organization is embracing Agile, is leadership more or less critical than in an organization embracing some other fundamental model? ~ Tom Cagley, SPaMCast

[Editor's Note: Over the coming weeks, this CMMI Appraiser will be sharing excerpts from a recent conversation with Tom Cagley on the Software Process and Measurement Cast (SPaMCast) about leadership, and whether leadership is more or less important in today’s Agile world. Listen to the full interview at SPaMCast 456.]

agile leadership

Tom, Agile leadership is a lot like Agile itself. Agile is iterative, incremental and distributed. In an Agile organization, leadership is iterative, incremental and distributed. 

I have an article slated for publication next month in the Cutter IT Journal on this. I’m calling it the “Pedagogy Principal.” The notion of this article is that Agile leaders need to learn how to teach other Agile leaders, and those Agile Leaders need to teach other Agile leaders. In other words, what’s needed is a cascading leadership effect. The problem with agile organizations today is we are not teaching leaders how to teach other leaders. 

For your listeners, Tom, pedagogy is the science of teaching and teaching others how to teach. Short story: I come from a family of teachers. My brothers, sisters and parents are all teachers, and I was the renegade. I was the only who said, “I do not want to be a teacher.” I do a lot of teaching now. Go figure!

My father, who is 93 years old and is still doing his thing, still refuses to refer to what I do as teaching, because I was the renegade that didn’t get a teaching degree. He always asks me how my “seminars” are going. Let’s say I’m teaching a class at Carnegie Mellon this week. He will say, “How was your seminar Jeff? How did that seminar go?”

So I was brought up in this environment of education. As a result, I really believe that one of the things that we can address and fix with leadership is teaching them how to be teachers. Then they can get better at teaching their leaders, and understand how to cascade leadership down to the lowest levels of the organization by teaching them how to do it. Part of that is demonstration, and part is mentoring and coaching – and a big part is teaching. 

What I’m examining in this article is what kind of framework we can put in place to help leaders be teachers, and teach them how to teach others how to teach. I think that really is the opportunity: Teaching them how to teach other leaders.

# # #

I hope my readers have enjoyed this segment of my interview with Tom Cagley on SPaMCast #456. We'll be talking more about leadership, and whether leadership is more or less important in today’s Agile world, in the next segment. Please check back soon.

For those interested in a deeper dive into learning about Agile Leadership, please visit agilecxo.org for white papers, infographics, podcasts, lighting lessons and performance models to help software and engineering executives guide their organizations to be more agile, from top to bottom.

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


Jeff Dalton is a Certified SCAMPI Lead Appraiser, Certified CMMI Instructor, author and consultant with years of real-world experience with the CMMI in all types of organizations. Jeff has taught thousands of students in CMMI training classes 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