Can we import risk management from CMMI into our Scrum Teams?

Hey, CMMI Appraiser,

It’s Daniel, from the CMMI certified engineering firm in Dayton Ohio again. Thanks for answering my questions. I get that CMMI can improve our Scrum Team’s Daily Standup meetings, but are you saying we can import aspects of the CMMI that don’t exist in Scrum, like risk management, to understand what’s being done? ~Daniel

Daniel, now you’re getting it! Here’s a better way to say it: when we combine CMMI and Scrum, we pick aspects of Scrum that we strengthen with the CMMI, based on the needs of your company. The goal is to make both frameworks stronger.

To stick with the Daily Standup example … every morning, for 15-20 minutes, the team stands together to discuss issues that are important to them. But there is no guidance around things that get talked about, and how things are going. As a result, the impact of the meeting, in terms of insight for management, is pretty weak. The format generally goes as follows:

“Here’s what I am doing.”
“Here’s what I plan to do.”
“Here are the kinds of problems I’m having.”

That’s fine, but it leads an opportunity for many things not being done – like paying attention to the risk.

This is common everywhere. If you asked your Scrum team, “How do you understand to risk?” they would say, “We do that in the Daily Standup. If somebody has a risk they bring it up.”

This won’t cut it for executives who need solid information about risk to make business decisions. The CMMI offers categories of risks that are important to us (like technical risk, financial risk, and business risk) and provides for brainstorming within these categories, recording them and sharing them with the appropriate stakeholder.

Does that mean ditch Scrum? No! Keep Scrum, and add that type of analysis in Daily stand-up maybe once or twice a week.

I’ll give you an example. Here at Broadsword we have clients who discuss risk once a week in their Daily Standup. They use the guided risk management within the CMMI to make their risk discussions more meaningful. And guess what? Management understands where they are with functional requirements. Sounds like a dream, right?

The trick to making this work is not to ditch Scrum or change how Scrum works, but to take the individual Scrum ceremonies involved (things like the Daily Standup or sprint retrospectives) and make them stronger.

We would never try to force a Scrum team to do BPUF, for example, or have status meetings simply because management wants information. That’s how it works in a waterfall world, but not in Scrum. Take the Daily Standup and leverage it back to improve the information that is being gathered. Use the guidance that the CMMI gives to the constructs of Scrum, instead of trying to change the construct.

What I hope you’ve gained from this conversation, Daniel, is that CMMI is fully compatible with Scrum, and can be used to improve agile methods, making your investment in agile both powerful and productive.  If I've left anything unanswered for you, please keep the questions coming!

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 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 running a successful CMMI program.

Can Scrum give us the features we want?

Hey, CMMI Appraiser,

It’s me again, Daniel, from the CMMI certified engineering firm in Dayton Ohio. Thank you for answering my question about CMMI and Scrum, but I’m still in the dark about features. We know what to expect from the CMMI, but can Scrum give us the features we need or not?

Daniel, the connection between CMMI and Scrum remains a mystery to many executives – and that’s OK! The CMMI Appraiser is here to help.

The secret of CMMI and Scrum is that they are more alike than they are different.  A lot of folks see CMMI and Scrum as polar opposites. But there’s a reason these two things exists. CMMI and Scrum both exist to solve problems. CMMI and Scrum are allies, not adversaries. Like these cool kids:

Why shouldn't CMMI and Scrum be friends? As the leader of your company, you can make that happen.  Use the CMMI to improve the Scrum processes to produce better results.

Now, about those pesky features. As I think I said last time, the Scrum team is a nuclear team that does all of its work inside of the time box called “sprint” and spends most of their effort focusing on the task at hand.  This is part of the magic of a scrum team - not forcing them to focus on too much at once.  One of those things that goes on outside of them is the generation of the features (usually either derived from, or a replacement for, requirements). The quality of these features, or functional requirements, must be reasonable, implementable, and well thought-out so the Scrum Team can accept them and turm them in to something valuable.

Trying to get visibility of the features to the scrum team can be tough when you hear your Scrum team say, “We don’t need any process.” But if you sit down with them and buy them a drink, and really talk about quality of the features, they will all start laughing and say the quality is poor. They may even say, “We get a lot of junk for stuff that can’t be implemented.”  They may even start telling you how to improve that (without using the dreaded "p-word" of course!).

At this point, you should ask them: “Would you like to receive higher quality features that are easier to implement and are more implementable?”

Most likely, everyone will say, “Yes.”

Right then I would make the argument that CMMI can help make their live's easier.

For example, check back to my lasts post about Daily Stand-ups. By adopting some of the best practices that the CMMI provides, and applying them to the simple Daily Stand-up construct, you will know exactly what’s happening with the features – same as you do in true CMMI environments (guess what....they're the same thing...).  That's because both CMMI and Scrum are all about solving problems.  They are not so different as you think.

Learn to get the two to work together, and they will be your BFF.

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 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 running a successful CMMI program.

Can we get a Scrum reporting tool?

Hey, CMMI Appraiser – I’m CEO of a CMMI certified engineering firm using agile methods here in Dayton Ohio. I would like to put our Scrum Teams on larger projects because they consistently deliver on time and on budget. The problem is, they rarely deliver all of the features we need, and I rarely find out until too late. Is there a Scrum reporting system or tool we can use to get a tighter grip? ~ Daniel C.

Hey, Daniel,

The best tool you can employ for Scrum projects (or for any others) is the one between your ears.

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The beauty is that Scrum teams tend to be self-organizing, independent, process-light, and quick to change.  Like snowflakes, no two are ever exactly alike.   Each has it's own "velocity." But because they are so different, most companies have trouble imagining how they "fit in" and are using Scrum for only a small subset of their projects. You are not alone in experiencing a lack of visibility into what they are doing. For some, it’s a total white-out.

Don’t take this wrong, Daniel, but part of the problem with using Scrum is that management often doesn’t understand its iterative and incremental nature. They want a "Big Plan up Front" (a "BPUF"). Scrum a bottom-up, collaborative, and self-organizing system for getting work done.  It often starts when one or two teams come up to management and ask if they can implement Scrum. Management agrees to it because it sounds "quick and light", but they quickly realize they have no idea of what’s going on.  But it doesn't have to be this way.

But knowing this does little to solve your problem. You aren’t getting good information. And you can’t make good business decisions without good information.

Strictly speaking Scrum doesn't encourage things like weekly status reporting.   Its primary focus is on their Scrum team. They call it a self-organizing team. There isn’t even a project manager (oh no!).

So how do you get the information you need to run the business?

One solution is to combine Scrum and CMMI. At my company Broadsword, we strengthen scrum with the CMMI, based on the needs of the company.

Case in point, the Daily Stand-up. As you know, Scrum Teams opt for Daily Stand-ups as opposed to the traditional status meetings. We don't want to change that because it's a powerful construct for communications.  In a very light and agile way, we want to use the CMMI as a framework to make sure we are talking about things in the Daily Stand-up that are really important, and to help guide us through decisions.

This gives us two major advantages. By using the simple Daily Stand-up mechanism, we get a really crisp, robust view of the project, so we can understand what’s going on. We understand it early, and we understand it often. And by adopting some of the best practices that the CMMI provides, we get more value out of the Daily Stand-up, allowing us to make it even stronger than it already was.

It comes down to visibility, not reporting, Daniel. When agile and CMMI are aligned and working properly together, you get good information, which in turn allows you to make good business decisions – including whether or not to alocate your Scrum teams to larger projects (yes - you should do it!).

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 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 running a successful CMMI program.