Agile Is Fragile? Really?

Hey CMMI Appraiser, “Agile is Fragile?” Really? ~ Roland

Dear Readers,

In our recent webinar, "Agile Resiliency: Scaling Agile So That It Thrives and Survives," we presented a concept that was new for some, the idea of utilizing the architectural strengths of the CMMI to make Agile more resilient to change and large-scale corporate pressure. We received many questions, which I promised to answer right here on this blog, starting today. ~ the CMMI Appraiser 

Dear Roland,

Yes, I said it, and I meant it. Agile is fragile. If we want Agile to survive, we need a Resilient Agile Architecture because Agile is about to get crushed.

The good news is, Agile is undeniably on track to be the most popular and fastest-growing set of methods for software development in the world. Companies of all sizes are hearing about the benefits of Agile, and are starting to adopt the techniques. This means that Agile developers, like you, have done a great job spreading the word. But the downside is, you’ve attracted the attention of a few new adopters.

These new adopters happen to be very large organizations.  They have decided that, strategically, they are going to start running their projects using Agile methods. Some of the biggest newcomers in our industry right now are General Motors, the U.S. Department of Defense, and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

Just thinking about the sheer size of these organizations can be mind-boggling. General Motors is one of the largest companies in the world. They already employ thousands of IT professionals, and they've announced they are hiring even more. When they announced that they were putting Agile front and center of all of their software development, and that they would in-source much of their IT, they created openings for thousands more IT professionals.

These organizations have the largest IT and engineering spend of any organizations on the planet. For example, General Motors, the Department of Defense, and Veterans Affairs have a combined external spend of close to $10B for IT and engineering.  There is a tremendous amount of momentum and influence from these organizations.

We have an old saying in the automotive industry, where I’ve been working for 30 years: “Suppliers don’t change General Motors, General Motors changes suppliers.”

The same problem happens when working with the Department of Defense. A supplier can have all the best intentions and the right way of going about things, but they will eventually get changed.

One of my favorite writers on IT and engineering systems from the 70s, Gerald M. Weinberg, had a phrase for this phenomenon. He called it “getting pickled in the brine.”

Oh, you can try to resist. You can try to stay a cool Agile cucumber. You can go into an organization like a General Motors and have the best intention of being Agile, and running projects in an Agile manner. But these big organizations have a lot of momentum and weight behind what they’re doing. They have a lot of cultural differences with your company -- a lot of brine.

Make no mistake. They will change the way you behave.  Not because they don't want to be Agile - but because they are NOT Agile.

This is a big problem for our industry, because, as I said, Agile is fragile. Agile is new. Agile is young. We all have great intentions to run our project using fixed time boxes based on negotiated sprint backlogs, to negotiate scope and perform backlog grooming, to conduct sprint demos and retrospectives, and all the things that those of us who are passionate about Agile think are important. But we get sidetracked by our big customers. The ones who are decidedly NOT agile.

I'll say it again.  Agile is fragile. We need to strengthen it with tools like the CMMI to create a "Resilient Agile Architecture,” which keeps us focused on what's most important to our business and our process, and ultimately, our product.  It keeps us Agile.

Did you miss the webinar? Soon we will announce the REPLAY of "Agile Resiliency: Scaling Agile So That It Thrives and Survives.”  Be sure to check back.

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.

How can we establish agile values across a 5000-person enterprise?

Dear CMMI Appraiser, I was referred to your blog by a friend in the industry who said you write about getting agile and CMMI to work together. In January, my agile shop was acquired by a national IT consulting and software solutions firm that is a CMMI Level 3 organization, with an intent to scale agile company-wide.  It’s no problem to establish a set of values with a Scrum team, but can we do the same across an entire enterprise of 5000 people? ~ Steven K.

Steven, glad to hear that we have a mutual friend!  And welcome to the CMMI (Capability Maturity Model Integration).  Yes, the Model is one of the tools you can use to help establish agile values across the enterprise.

Think of the CMMI as a set of guidelines to improve organizational performance. The CMMI is a framework that helps you learn how to design a flexible architecture for continuous process improvement. And the CMMI is a tool that can help you set the right goals and objectives and keep asking the right questions.

Now, there are four areas within in the CMMI that specifically address values. You can establish agile values across an organization of 100, 500 or 5000 employees by using the CMMI to help you ask questions from these process areas and using the guidance. I will touch on them briefly.

Organizational training

• Are we training people enough so that they understand what’s important to us as a set of values?
• How are we training them?

Organizational process definition

• Are the values clear?
• Does everybody understand the values?
• Do we have our values presented in a format that enables everybody to know exactly what they are? (Examples include emails, posters in every team meeting, messages scribbled on everybody’s white board, etc.)

Organizational process retrospective

• What can we learn from the lessons that came before?
• Have we captured information from the lessons learned and shared it with the rest of the company?
• Have we put our team on a vertical improvement trajectory?

Generic Practices (GPs)

• Have we established an organizational policy? (Generic Practice 2.1)
• Have we planned the process? (Generic Practice 2.2)
• Are we providing resources? (Generic Practice 2.3)
• Have we assigned responsibility? (Generic Practice 2.4)
• Have we trained people? (Generic Practice 2.5)
• Are we controlling work products? (Generic Practice 2.6)
• Have we identified and involved relevant stakeholders? (Generic Practice 2.7)
• Are we monitoring and controlling the process? (Generic Practice 2.8)
• Are we objectively evaluating adherence? (Generic Practice 2.9)
• Do we consistently review status with higher level management? (Generic Practice 2.10)
• Have we established a defined process? (Generic Practice 3.1)
• Are we collecting process related experiences? (Generic Practice 3.2)

That’s a lot to digest, I know. But all this means is that you can use the guidance of CMMI to help establish a set of methods and frameworks by asking and answering many questions.

For more in-depth information on establishing agile values enterprise-wide, Steven, you want want to participate in our upcoming Webinar presentation of "Agile Resiliency: Scaling Agile So That It Thrives & Survives." We will address these questions, and more.

Click HERE to register for the Live Webinar (Friday, June 21st @1pm EDT)

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.

CMMI Certification doesn't exist? Whaaaat? But customers are ASKING for it!

Dear CMMI appraiser, we need to look at CMMI certification because we’d like to bid on certain government contracts. I just got off the phone with a Virginia CMMI appraiser who said there’s no such thing as CMMI certification. How can there be “no such thing” as CMMI certification when clients are specifically asking for it? ~ Rudy J.

Dear, Rudy, yes, CMMI certification exists … in our industry’s vernacular ONLY. But not officially. So the Virginia CMMI Appraiser was right. The concept of CMMI certification is not recognized by the SEI or the CMMI Institute.  We use the term "Rating" in its place.

But don’t be upset that you can’t actually get a CMMI certificate, because you kinda-sorta can. Something far more valuable is available to you. If you decide to not focus on CMMI certification, you end up getting all of the value of the CMMI. In other words, don't end up chasing the paper instead of the performance.  Chasing paper just gives you “plaque buildup.”

So what is the real value of the CMMI? Adopting the CMMI is about the transformation of the culture of your company. It’s about changing the way we behave, so that we build products that are better than other companies that are building similar products.

That’s what your clients really want. They don’t want you to be a “good” company. Good companies typically have lame processes that cost more, produce lower quality, and make employees unhappy. No, what your clients want from you is to be a GREAT company. And that means, most likely, you will need to transform.  But it's all good.

You can’t transform a culture by going out and getting certificates. When we put a “certification” mindset around getting better, it drives the wrong kind of behaviors.

So why do clients ask for CMMI certification, if it doesn’t exist?

It started with our friends in the federal government sector, who created an environment where a CMMI mandate feels and looks like a certification. By extension, many engineering and software companies in the commercial sector are routinely inserting requirements in their RFPs and contracts that suppliers be at a certain CMMI Level.  Pretty much the same as the feds.

But focusing on CMMI certification is a misguided interpretation of the value of CMMI.

Instead, focus on getting better at what you are ALREADY doing - using the CMMI as a guide,

That’s what your clients are really asking for. They want you to be better at what you do. And, honestly, what could be more appropriate? We all want to improve, and to be in a continuously improving environment.

And that’s what the CMMI is all about.

Now, you said you want to win their business. I get that. I fully acknowledge many small and large suppliers in Virginia and elsewhere must achieve a CMMI Maturity Level in order to bid on work. In some cases, we’re talking about millions, if not hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts. It's a business reality we all share.

But CMMI certification can’t be your only goal – or you will not get the results you were hoping for.

To help make my point, let’s go back to the Virginia CMMI Appraiser you mentioned. If he was a good CMMI Appraiser, he might have asked you “Why are you doing this to yourself?” That might have led to discussion about the possibilities of adopting CMMI as model to be a great company - not a model to get a plaque.

Had you called me, you may have been surprised by my approach. I would have tried to talk you out of having CMMI appraisal altogether. I’d do that to try to figure out just how important it really was to you. That would help me understand how much you have thought it through.

Then I would have tried to help you understand that having a so-called CMMI Certification isn't what’s most important. It’s far more important to put your company on the path to greatness.

That’s what makes the CMMI so valuable and useful. Adopting the Model puts you on the path to greatness by getting you to think about things like how well you are running your company, how well you are delivering products, and how happy your customers are.

It’s not about what’s hanging on your wall.

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 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.

Is it OK to stop at CMMI Level 3?

Hey, CMMI Appraiser, our company writes embedded software used by commercial and government clients. We’ve successfully completed our SCAMPI A appraisal and achieved our goal of being CMMI Level 3, but I’m nervous. At the end of the findings presentation my boss blurted out "Level Four in six months!" Is it OK to stop here? I’m not ready to start pursuing CMMI Level 4. ~ Andrea A., Engineering Executive

Hey, Andrea, congratulations on successfully completing the SCAMPI A appraisal and achieving your CMMI Level 3 rating! If you are thinking ML4 is the inevitable next step, it’s no wonder if you feel anxious. (Hint: it might not be.)

Here’s my advice:

RELAX! Appreciate what you’ve achieved. Understand that you are now on the path to being the kind of company you’ve always wanted to be.

Often when I give this advice early on in my introduction to CMMI training classes, I get a lot of blank stares.  So, what have you achieved?  Looking beyond the tactical objective of achieving a CMMI Maturity Level 3, what you’ve achieved, strategically, is a new way of doing your work.

Starting to feel better yet?

Now, this is a big assumption, BUT, assuming your Lead Appraiser was a good CMMI consultant, he or she helped you learn to ask questions about your company and work that were tailored to your organization's situation. So you learned to ask challenging questions about the way you do your work, and how to apply the CMMI as one of the tools that can drive behavior change and performance improvement. In the end, you got your ML3 rating.

Woo-hoo!  Party time!

But your CMMI Appraiser should also help you realize that you were building something as you went along. Did that happen in your case? All the while you were gathering evidence, did you take the broader perspective and understand that you were actually working toward something of far greater value than achieving your Maturity Level? You were developing a new engineering system for the company.

Surprised? I hope not. Hopefully, your LA kept you focused on building an architecture that is multifaceted and organizational in nature, involving a process infrastructure, a performance infrastructure, a financial infrastructure – all the company’s business systems.

That’s what I meant by asking you to appreciate what you’ve got here. You’ve really got two things for helping the company improve performance:

1. On the one hand, you designed an architecture (the performance improvement model).
2. On the other hand, you built the infrastructure (the physical instantiation of that model).

That’s how it is when we at Broadsword work with clients. We help them build an infrastructure that is the physical instantiation of the architecture we’ve helped them develop.  (Check out some of their testimonials about what that was like.)

The infrastructure includes the people that have been organized, the process assets that have been created, the measures instituted, and the specific way everything is communicated. The infrastructure is a physical thing that has been built – a product of people, processes and technologies. It’s YOUR infrastructure, developed by you, and based on an architectural model.

Now, you indicated that your goal in adopting the CMMI was to achieve a Level.  That's common enough.  Many companies build the infrastructure in part because they are trying to achieve a CMMI Level.  That was their tactical objective. But if you were working with an experienced Lead Appraiser, what they really helped you build, strategically, is an architecture with which to run your business.

So that’s what you have now! The company made a significant investment in performance improvement infrastructure. And you built an architecture with which to run your business.  Now you are asking: is it OK to stop there?

No, it’s not OK to stop. To be clear, I am NOT saying go get an ML4 – there may be little value in that for your company at this time. Instead, your goal should be to integrate your engineering system with your other business systems.

I’ll talk more about that in a future post. Meantime, stay calm, apply what you've been learning, and start writing better software.

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 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.

It's time for the “Agile Resiliency” Webinar, summer edition!

Dear Readers,

Once again, summertime is just around the corner, and your fun-loving CMMI Appraiser is letting the good times roll with a HOT new “Agile Resiliency” Webinar on Friday, June 21st at 1pm EDT.

Registration is now open for our FREE presentation of "Agile Resiliency: Scaling Agile So That It Thrives & Survives."

Click HERE to register for the Live Webinar (Friday, June 21st @1pm EDT)

Why attend?

One of the hottest issues for engineering and software professionals today is how to make agile scale despite opposition – or, to coin a phrase, how to create “agile resilience.” The Webinar offers a new way of thinking about scaling agile by taking a look at your agile methodology through the perspective of the “Agile Resilience Architecture,” which keeps you focused on what's most important to your business and your process, and ultimately, your product.

In this practical, interactive, fast-paced Webinar, you’ll learn the following:

• How to think of agile in terms of a 3-tiered Architecture consisting of your values, your methods and your techniques
• How to start with agile values and see them as guiding your work
• How to apply the Architecture as a method or framework for managing the work of Scrum
• How to use the Architecture to focus on the techniques for doing the work, such as Planning Poker, Continuous Builds, Story Time, Backlog Grooming, Retrospectives, etc.
• How to integrate the architectural strengths of the CMMI with your agile approach to bring about the transformation of the culture of your company

 … Plus, many more strategies, tips and insights for improving ourselves and making our agile methodology scalable.

Space is limited ... sign up now!

Register for the FREE Live Webinar.

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.

Is CMMI cost-prohibitive for companies under 100 FTEs?

Dear CMMI Appraiser – My business partner is interested in adopting the CMMI framework for software process improvement, but, to be honest, do we have any business trying to adopt CMMI? We’re no Northrop Grumman or Lockheed-Martin. We are proud to be a growing firm that’s committed to doing things the right way, but I assume the CMMI is cost-prohibitive for a company under 100 FTEs like us. Am I right? ~ Joseph “Jody” D.

For the answer to this question, please visit www.CMMIxs.com.

How does our CMMI Level 3 compare against the competition?

Hey, CMMI Appraiser,

We’re a CMMI Level 3 IT strategies and software development company in western Ohio. The other night, at an industry awards ceremony, our biggest competitor bragged that he had data that showed how his company’s Maturity Level rating compared against ours. He acted like it was privileged information. Any idea what he was talking about? ~ Ray I.

Ray, it sounds like your competitor was trying to impress you (or himself) by acting mysterious about some pretty straight-forward data. The truth is, anyone curious about comparing their CMMI maturity levels to other companies can reference the following chart:

This data was recently released by the CMMI Institute, and is contained within their March 2013 Maturity Profile Report. The online version is available here.

At a glance, the chart reveals three interesting pieces of information:

1. The vast majority of companies are at CMMI Maturity Level 2 and Level 3 (“Managed” and “Defined”). 
2. A smaller amount of companies are at CMMI Maturity Level 4 and 5 (“Quantitatively Managed” and “Optimizing”). 
3. A fairly significant amount of companies did not get a CMMI Maturity Level rating (“Not Given”). "Not Given" could be the result of a company not caring about what "level" they get, or it could be because they DO care, but just don't make it!

To me, the most interesting aspect of this graph is that – like your company and your competitor’s – so many organizations were at CMMI Maturity Levels 2 and 3. This is a trend that has been gaining momentum over the last few years.  The current Report shows that, out of the last 5500+ appraisals reported in North America, about 25% were CMMI Maturity Level 2, and 63% were CMMI Maturity Level 3.  Remember, this chart is for ALL reporting organizations.  Results vary by country - in fact, the US number is roughly 55% Maturity Level Three and 45% Maturity level Two.

But this is ALL it means. Your company and his are among the 63% of companies that were appraised last year and achieved an ML3 rating.

Mystery solved!

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 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.

Register today for San Diego CMMI Training

Dear CMMI Appraiser – I am a Vice President at a leading engineering and technical services company serving the U.S. Defense, Intelligence, Civil and Homeland Security Communities with over 2,000 employees worldwide. After our Northern Virginia team had such a good experience in your introductory class about CMMI last month, we decided to put our Southern California group through the same CMMI training. Do you have an Introduction to CMMI training in Southern California scheduled in the weeks or months ahead? Thank you. ~ John L.

John – I’m glad to hear that last month’s CMMI Training in Northern Virginia was useful to your company. Yes, I will be conducting San Diego CMMI training classes very soon. In fact, we’ll be on location in sunny San Diego at the end of this month. See details below.

Yes, indeed! On May 28-30, 2013, we are joining with Epsilon Systems Solutions to host a 3-day CMMI training class in paradise!

The training course is an ideal experience for any executive, project manager, engineer, software developer, line manager, analyst, tester, or process or quality professional who would benefit from learning how to use the CMMI to make software and engineering performance even better. Registration is open for Introduction to CMMI-DEV v1.3.

Click the links below for more details and to register for San Diego CMMI training classes:

Introduction to CMMI-DEV v1.3

INTRODUCTION TO CMMI TRAINING: SAN DIEGO
May 28-30, 2013, in San Diego, CA, hosted by Epsilon Solutions.
Learn about CMMI, process models, and how to use them to be a great company!
Click here to register for: the Introduction to CMMI training in San Diego

Earn 21 PDU's or 2.5 CEUs!

It’s great that you are planning to send your Southern California team to our San Diego CMMI training class, John. I hope you’ll feel free to invite colleagues from other companies, as well. As you know from your previous experience, this practical, relevant CMMI training class gives engineering and software professionals new insights into addressing persistent problems, and helps them improve upon what they are ALREADY doing. So share the news!

In the meantime, I’ll see your team in paradise!

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 engineering strategy, performance innovation , software process improvement and running a successful CMMI program.

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

Top 5 CMMI Info Sites

Hey, CMMI Appraiser, we are big fans of your blog, and have noticed that you sometimes post links to other resources on CMMI, like videos and electronic books that we’d love to dig deeper into. Is there one central place to get this information from you? ~ David Z.

David, you made my day! I love that kind of question. We are ALL OVER the social media. And on every media outlet we provide a wealth of FREE information about CMMI, engineering strategy and organizational performance innovation that can help you improve the speed of software delivery, reduce defects, eliminate rework and make your projects more predictable and manageable.

Here are our 5 most popular sites - so take your pick!

#1 CMMI-TV – If you are looking for short, informative video clips about Agile, CMMI and performance innovation, we invite you to subscribe to our CMMI-TV channel.

#2 CMMI eBooks – Like to get your CMMI info on screen? Check out the highly useful and always entertaining eBooks we’ve written about CMMI.

 #3 @CMMIAppraiser on Twitter – Could you use a daily tip on CMMI, engineering performance and software process improvement? Follow us on Twitter.

 #4 Broadsword Client User Group on LinkedIn – Interested in joining a community of like-minded engineering and software professionals for discussion and CMMI info? Join our group on LinkedIn:

#5 www.broadswordsolutions.com – For your all-around information source about CMMI, performance innovation and process improvement planning , join us on the Broadsword website.

You can find us elsewhere online (such as Facebook, Google-Plus andTumblr), offline (such as in the Cutter IT Journal) and in person at seminars, conferences and CMMI Training classes all around the world – but this should give you a good start.

Enjoy!

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 engineering strategy, performance innovation , software process improvement and running a successful CMMI program.

We got our CMMI Level – NOW what?

Hey CMMI Appraiser – we got our CMMI Level. I’m proud of our Appraisal Team, but now what do we do? ~ Loa P, IT executive 

Hey Loa,

Congratulations! I hope by “getting CMMI Level” you mean you precisely determined the strengths and weaknesses of your engineering or software organization - and you're using that today to make yourself better!  aIf you learned to use CMMI that way – as one of the tools you can use to accelerate performance while making the team more agile, stable, and valuable – then, way to go, team! You should be jumping for joy!

Unfortunately, not everyone feels this way after achieving a CMMI Capability Rating. The adoption of CMMI carries with it many complex emotions. Some software and engineering executives feel strongly that they want organizational performance improvement. Sometimes they covet "CMMI certification" – or both. Sometime, they  don’t know WHAT they have.

One of the things that I try to get my clients’ heads around – whether we’re guiding them through a CMMI appraisal, CMMI consulting or CMMI training – is that a 'process' is simply about how you do work and how you do business.

So you did your process improvement planning and designed your process. But all the while you were gathering evidence during your SCAMPI A, you were actually working toward something of far greater value than achieving your Maturity Level 3. You were validating a new system that will drive your company from process improvement to performance innovation.

And now you want to know what to do next? How about improving performance with the processes that you’ve built? It’s the next frontier. It’s time to operationalize your strategy for continuous improvement. It’s time to operate the infrastructure you’ve developed.

Now, I say this to some pretty smart engineers sometimes, and they have no idea I’m talking about. “What infrastructure?” they’ll say. “I didn’t know we were building an infrastructure. I thought we were just filling out forms!”

Others get it. They understand that CMMI is about much more than filling out forms; it’s about creating a system of systems. It’s about architecture and integration points between processes.

No matter where you are at this point, Loa, I encourage you to look beyond CMMI. Achieving a Maturity Level was merely a tactical objective. Now you are learning to operate like a great company. That’s a strategic initiative of far greater import. It calls for a higher awareness of the architecture (the model we designed) and the infrastructure (the physical instantiation of that model) in which you have invested.

In a nutshell, what you’ve done is build a multi-faceted organizational infrastructure that is at once a process infrastructure and a performance infrastructure. You’ve built this infrastructure in part because you were trying to achieve a CMMI Level – and if you worked with Broadsword, we helped you build it with an agileCMMI approach – but what we really helped you build is an architecture with which to run your business. You can take that and run – far beyond CMMI.

Going beyond CMMI is a passion of ours here at Ask the CMMI Appraiser. I have more to share on this topic. Please check back soon.

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 engineering strategy, performance innovation , software process improvement and running a successful CMMI program.

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

How to adopt the CMMI without creating more overhead?

Dear CMMI Appraiser, we’re a mid-sized San Diego IT company, trying to grow, and we realized that in order to grow, we had to have standard procedures on how things needed to get done that would be easy to learn, follow and would be successful. We started by defining and adopting our own methodology. One year later, we are interested in graduating to the more rigorous CMMI model, but have some concerns. What is the best way to adopt the CMMI without dramatically increasing overhead? ~ Ned A.

Ned, welcome to the CMMI! It sounds as though your research has led you to conclude (correctly) that the CMMI is a process model that can help you improve upon the way you already do your work. I would expand this to say that the CMMI provides a clear definition of what an organization should do to promote behaviors that lead to improved performance. Those behaviors include eliminating what we call “Process Debt.”

What Is Process Debt?

Process Debt is our name for the unintentional consequence of trying to reach a CMMI Maturity Level without trying to be a great company. It can be an insidious problem for companies that don’t understand the real value of the CMMI. Instead of focusing on learning new behaviors that can transform the culture of their company, they take a documentation-focused approach. The result? Too many forms, meetings, reviews, and sign-offs. Quality audits are heavy-handed and there is much too much oversight. The resulting Process Debt crushes your engineers, damages creativity, and destroys any productivity gains you were hoping for.

How to Avoid Process Debt?

You can avoid Process Debt simply by understanding that the CMMI is about supercharging engineering performance, increasing productivity, reducing risk, and doing what you do, better. It is NOT about certificates, plaques, and ratings. It’s NOT a test you need to pass. And it’s NOT about creating more overhead.

Many newcomers to the CMMI don’t realize this at first. Often, someone has been pumping them full of misinformation. We see some CMMI consultants exhorting their teams to finish the projects and present documents with no real insight into how things are going or how they can be made better.

That’s a mistake. Rushing to create documents and processes to satisfy the CMMI Appraiser just adds to the Process Debt, making it even worse. Instead, you should be working to eliminate crushing Process Debt – and help you learn the behaviors that can put your company on the Path to Greatness.

OK – How Do You Do THAT?

To learn more about CMMI, I encourage you to take advantage of some of our upcoming CMMI training, webinar and eBook experiences:

INTRODUCTION TO CMMI TRAINING: SAN DIEGO
May 28, 2013, in San Diego, CA, hosted by Epsilon Solutions.
Learn about CMMI, process models, and how to use them to be a great company!
Click here to register for: the Introduction to CMMI training in San Diego

CMMI: Everything you need to know! WEBINAR REPLAY
Learn the ins and outs of the CMMI, and how to ask yourself what I call “CMMI questions” as an engineering strategy for addressing common business problems such as late projects, over budget projects, unhappy customers, etc.
Click here to watch the “CMMI: Everything You Need to Know” Webinar Replay

HOW TO SPELL CMMI: eBOOK
How to Spell CMMI is an introduction CMMI for engineering and software professionals looking for ways to improve software delivery, achieve a CMMI “certificate” or rating, develop a strategic weapon that can help attract and retain new customers, or get on the path to becoming a great company. Click here to download How to Spell CMMI

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 engineering strategy, performance innovation , software process improvement and running a successful CMMI program.

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

OCM? What’s in it for me?

Hey CMMI Appraiser, I’ve seen a few posts here about OCM, and my team is interested in learning more. Can you tell us how would OCM benefit our organization and its process improvement planning effort? We are a CMMI Level 3 organization ~ Jonathan A.

Jonathan, thank you for stopping by.  The discipline you have been reading about here at Ask the CMMI Appraiser, known as Organizational Change Management (OCM), is the specialty of our resident expert, Julie Calfin, Broadsword’s Director of Consulting. Julie does amazing work with companies that are undergoing large scale business transformation like yours. Take it away, Julie! ~ The CMMI Appraiser 

Thank you, CMMI Appraiser!

Jonathan, great question! “What’s in it for me?” is generally the first thing anyone wants to know when they find out about OCM. Depending your role in the organization, I give my answer one of two ways:

1) From the organization’s perspective:

The benefit of OCM is it gives you a way of making your future state a reality. In other words, OCM is a discipline for helping you transform your company into whatever you want it to be.

As a practical matter, the organization benefits by embracing OCM because change is incredibly disruptive to any organization. OCM allows you to manage the change with minimum disruption. That’s the main benefit for the organization.

Is there an ROI? Absolutely! Organizations that embrace OCM make a significant investment in tactics and tools such as communications, training, stakeholder involvement, recognition & rewards, and what they get out of it is the ability to implement all of these changes, without burning out their workforce, without missing all of their project deadlines, and without losing their customers.

2) From the individual’s perspective:

The individual benefits from the adoption of OCM practices as well. After all, the organization is investing in you so that you can have a role in its future state. OCM tactics employed by your organization give you the ability to make the necessary changes without burning yourself out or harming your work product in the process.

Oh, I understand that sometimes they don’t make themselves clear. Tell me if this has ever happened to you. The order comes down from above that a specific change is coming. Unfortunately, the person sponsoring the initiative does not know how to make the change a reality. They know WHAT needs to change (they know, for example, they need processes that are CMMI-based), but don’t know HOW to go about affecting that change.

This is the purpose of OCM. Using OCM, the leaders of your team can create a blueprint for how to make these changes a reality, how to change their culture, and how to sustain that culture change over time.

There are three more ways OCM helps individuals do their jobs better.

Efficiency: Nowadays, more people are asked to do a lot with a little. OCM techniques allow people to implement large scale changes without overtaxing themselves in the process. For example, by involving the right people in the change initiative at the right time, you can avoid delays that are caused by false starts and negative emotions.

Learning: There is a learning component to OCM as well. Each individual has to acquire some new knowledge, skills and abilities – and potentially some new attitudes – in order to make the change a reality. One of the things we do in OCM, for each stakeholder group, is to quantify the learning that is needed and schedule it to be acquired at the right time. The advantage is that the organization is not going to just ask you to change. Instead, they will give you the learning opportunities you need to make these changes.

Influence: Finally, the adoption of OCM practices will equip individuals in the company to positively influence those around them. Change leaders are needed throughout the organization, not just at the top. Individuals become influential by disseminating valuable information, modeling desired behaviors, and eliminating barriers to change. Influential leaders emerge when we provide opportunities for them that are aligned with our future state vision.

I appreciate your question, Jonathan.  Please check back in the weeks ahead as Broadsword Solutions is planning to announce the availability of our first OCM eBook!

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

Julie Calfin is the Director of Consulting at Broadsword Solutions Corporation. She has years of real world experience using OCM strategy and tactics to help her clients achieve their goals. Julie also uses the CMMI, in partnership with her clients, to set-up, monitor, and sustain process improvement programs.

Visit www.broadswordsolutions.com for more information about running a successful CMMI program.

SEPG North America 2013, Coming to Pittsburgh

SEPG North America 2013, Coming to Pittsburgh in October by bosikowicz

Reposted from the SEPG Conferences Blog

As the new host of the SEPG Conference Series, the CMMI Institute is pleased to announce that SEPG North America 2013 will be held at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on October 1-2, 2013. As the host of the SEPG North America conference, the CMMI Institute is thrilled to welcome a worldwide community of professionals to its home city for two days of high-quality learning and networking. The conference will deliver high-value, practical information to end users and practitioners and will offer excellent opportunities to connect with others in the performance improvement community.

The CMMI Institute and the SEPG program committee are working quickly to be able to announce information on speakers, registration, and more.

Moving forward, please visit www.sepgconference.org for all information related to SEPG conferences. 

Pilot Testing: A Tale of Two Companies

Hey, CMMI Appraiser, in my last company, we tested all of our new processes before deploying them. My new boss doesn’t think piloting is necessary, and I don’t have any hard data or evidence to fall back on. What can I say to change her mind? ~ Kim L.

Hey, Kim– great to hear that you are being an advocate for pilot testing in your new company! Helping people transform company culture with CMMI is an area of expertise of Laura Adkins, a Senior CMMI Consultant with Broadsword. Laura does amazing work with companies who are trying to institutionalize new processes within the Agile and CMMI frameworks. Take it away, Laura! ~ The CMMI Appraiser 

Thank you, CMMI Appraiser!

Kim, hard evidence can be gathered to prove the value of piloting in your organization. But rather than trying to convince your boss with a lot of facts and data, I’d recommend telling her a story.

I call it, “The tale of two companies …”

Once upon a time, there were two companies: The Foolish Company and the Wise Company. The Foolish Company believed they needed to achieve CMMI Maturity Level 3 right away. So their quality group got to work designing the Foolish Company’s new CMMI-based processes. They didn’t have time to consult process users. Instead, they went forward designing large volumes of process assets, and immediately deployed them to all of their process users.

The Foolish Company chose to build their process on a foundation of sand because it was much quicker.

Now the Wise Company had a different approach. The Wise Company was a good company that wanted to be great. After learning about CMMI, they selected it as their process framework because they believed in the model’s best practices. The Wise Company commissioned small groups of employees to define processes that would improve their performance. These small groups designed processes iteratively so they would be “Just Enough, Not Too Much”. Before deploying their new processes, the Wise Company tried them out on projects of varying sizes and types.

The Wise Company chose to build their process on a foundation of rock because it was much stronger.

Let’s fast-forward several months and see what became of the two companies’ very different process improvement planning efforts.

The Foolish Company, which chose to build its process on a foundation of sand, because it was much quicker, didn’t take the time to pilot test their processes before releasing them. The team tried to use the new processes, but found defects and areas that they missed. After just a few weeks, the Foolish Company realized that their processes were not designed for small software maintenance projects. Since the Foolish Company is primarily in the business of performing software maintenance, they had to go back and re-design their processes to meet the needs of small projects. Months later, they were still in the rework mode …

The Wise Company, which chose to build their process on a foundation of rock because it was much stronger, spent time pilot testing their new processes on projects of varying sizes and types. The Wise Company listened to their pilot participants and made the changes they suggested. The Wise Company caught some areas that needed to be changed, implemented the change, and are going forward with the deployment, releasing the new processes with confidence that they will work.

Ask your boss: Which company are we going to be?

The real value of pilot testing is it helps accelerate the institutionalization of new processes. By planning and conducting a process pilot, your company can use the feedback from pilot process-related experiences to update your assets … and be a Wise Company.

Encourage your boss to look back through our blog posts on pilot testing, Kim. We hope we’ve shared enough tools, tips and guidance on validating process that the value of testing will be clear. If you need any more help convincing her, you know where to find us!

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

Laura Adkins is a Senior CMMI Consultant with Broadsword Solutions Corporation. She has years of real world experience using pilot testing strategies and tactics to help her clients achieve their goals. Laura also uses the CMMI, in partnership with her clients, to set-up, monitor, and sustain process improvement programs.

Visit www.broadswordsolutions.com for more information about running a successful CMMI program.

2 New Webinar Replays ... Watch one, or both!

Dear Readers,

Recently, I presented two Webinars on topics of growing interest to software and systems engineering executives and professionals who are seeking out new strategies, tools and techniques that can help them establish the type of environment that can make them a great company.

• "CMMI: Everything you NEED to know!"
• "Agile Resiliency: How CMMI Enables Agile to Thrive and Survive"

If you missed these Webinars, or would like to view them again, here’s your opportunity! The replay recordings are available for viewing on your own time and at your own pace. (And they are still free!)

To watch and listen to the recordings, presented by Broadsword and attended live by software and engineering professionals from companies large and small, around the world, click the following links:

• "CMMI: Everything you NEED to know!"  
• "Agile Resiliency: How CMMI Enables Agile to Thrive and Survive"

What are these Webinars about?

By watching the replay of the “CMMI: Everything You Need to Know” Webinar, you'll gain an understanding of the popular Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI), and learn about answering what I call “CMMI questions” as an engineering strategy for addressing common business problems such as late projects, over budget projects, unhappy customers, etc.

By watching the replay of the “Agile Resiliency” Webinar, you'll be introduced to the concept of using the CMMI as one of the tools that can make agile stronger by building a resilient agile architecture. In this Webinar, I lay out my vision for how the entire family of Agile methods can be made resilient and strong through the application of the CMMI.

Designed specifically for executives, engineers and business professionals, both Webinars help you learn to think about the CMMI as a set of guidelines you can use to create an environment in which the organization can manage its uniqueness in a structured way.

But that’s just scratching the surface of the strategies, tools and techniques you’ll take away from these fast-paced, lively presentations.

• Click here to watch the “CMMI: Everything You Need to Know” Webinar Replay
• Click here to watch the “Agile Resliency” Webinar Replay

And when you're through with the Webinar replays, if you would like more insight into using the CMMI as one of the tools that can help you establish the type of environment that can make you a great company, check out our upcoming LIVE learning opportunities:

KEYNOTE SPEAKING: MIDWEST
April 26, 2013, in Detroit, Michigan @ PMI Great Lakes 2013 Symposium – “Agile Resiliency” and "Process Innovation at the Speed of Life"

AGILE LEARNING DAY: EAST
May 8, 2013, in Fairfax, Virginia, in partnership with CC Pace – "Agile CMMI Learning Day"

INTRODUCTION TO CMMI: WEST
May 28, 2013, in San Diego, CA, in partnership with Epsilon Solutions. Learn about CMMI, process models, and how to use them to be a great company! http://cmmi-training-san-diego.eventbrite.com

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 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.

Should we make everyone follow the same process?

Hey, CMMI Appraiser, should we force our project teams to accept either agile or Waterfall methods, and not allow any deviation? ~ DC SPIN Attendee

Today’s episode of CMMI-TV was filmed ON LOCATION at a recent DC Software Process Improvement Network (DC SPIN) gathering in Fairfax, Virginia, where I presented on “Agile Resiliency.” An attendee asked if it was important to make everyone on their project teams follow the same process. Below is a video clip with my answer, followed by a synopsis of my response. Enjoy!

OVERVIEW

Consultants love talking about the CMMI as being all about everybody doing the same thing every time. According to them, the CMMI is repeatable and predictable, and that means that everybody has to have the same behavior. One size fits all.

But one size -- whether Waterfall, agile, CMMI or any other method, tool or technique -- does not fit all.  It's unrealistic and counterproductive to expect everyone to demonstrate the same repeatable behavior. What needs to be repeatable are the OUTCOMES.

What kind of outcomes should be repeatable?  How about high quality software, efficient production and happy customers?  These outcomes are possible even when many projects are unique and require their own "way of doing things" (otherwise known as the PROCESS).

To allow for companies' uniqueness, this CMMI Appraiser recommends that organizations have a SET of software process improvement models and methodologies from which projects can choose. That might include using both Scrum and Waterfall, for example. From that set, projects assemble the processes they want to use.

Keep in mind, a “set” means more than one. And “more than one” means you need some flexibility and agility to decide how you are going to do something.

For example, a team leader might say, “We’re going to adopt Scrum, but we’re going to use Wide Band Delphi for estimating.”

Those are from two different "communities." Is that OK?

Why not? You are trying to meet the needs of the project, right? So go for it. Have a SET of standard processes from which each project can derive their unique process, and then assemble process patterns to use depending on the needs, goals and objectives of the project.

For more insight into using the CMMI as one of the tools that can help you establish the type of environment that can make you a great company, check out our upcoming learning opportunities:

KEYNOTE SPEAKING: MIDWEST
April 26, 2013, in Detroit, Michigan @ PMI Great Lakes 2013 Symposium – “Agile Resiliency” and "Process Innovation at the Speed of Life"

AGILE LEARNING DAY: EAST
May 8, 2013, in Fairfax, Virginia, in partnership with CC Pace – "Agile CMMI Learning Day"

INTRODUCTION TO CMMI: WEST
May 28, 2013, in San Diego, CA, in partnership with Epsilon Solutions. Learn about CMMI, process models, and how to use them to be a great company! http://cmmi-training-san-diego.eventbrite.com

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 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.