We often emphasize the need to do process improvement on a continuous basis, as an ingrained component in the “business as usual” operations. However, what about the management of this activity, should it be performed as operations management? (more…)
CMMI-DEV
Archived Posts from this Category
October 31, 2011
Don’t miss the benefits of CMMI
Posted by Sebastian Cazacu under Change Management, CMMI, CMMI-ACQ, CMMI-DEV, CMMI-SVC, Process Improvement, programme management, project management[2] Comments
October 4, 2011
Agile and CMMI – Surely Not?
Posted by Graham Dick under Agile, CMMI, CMMI-DEV, Process ImprovementLeave a Comment
I was chatting with a customer the other day who has a relatively small development environment and has achieved some really demonstrative benefits using CMMI to drive his process improvement programme. He has successfully illustrated how CMMI works in a small setting. The quite exciting point is that unlike so many process improvement projects that just “die a death” this one is moving on and evolving.
June 27, 2011
I have just had a great opportunity to visit Mongolia and provide training and consultancy for a new client there. An exciting experience to say the least.
Flying Aeroflot via Moscow was… interesting – no in-flight entertainment, so my books got a good pounding. Minimal in-flight announcements – fantastic, Aeroflot becomes my airline of choice. If only they flew more routes from the UK. Changing flights in Moscow – the KGB still seems to run the transfer desk. “Who are you? Where are you going? Where did you get these boarding passes?” Just for starters.
Arriving 7am Saturday morning – the real red-eye experience. The client has arranged a pick-up, so I don’t have to think about finding a taxi. Fantastic. Straight to the hotel, where in brain-dead mode I check-in, unpack, then find breakfast. Interesting slope to the floor in the bathroom, still it helps the water in the shower to drain away. As long as I don’t get too drunk, I probably won’t fall over. No change there, then.
Saturday passes in a haze of jet-lag.
Sunday. Final preparation and some work for the office, so not a lot of chance to go sight-seeing. Make it out of the hotel for an hour or two to get my bearings. Find Subhaktar square and the parliament building – right next door to the hotel. Interesting combination of mid-20th Russian communist monolithic and extreme modernism in the architecture. Hmmm.
Dinner, read, then bed, ready for the off with the client on Monday.
Monday. Getting to know you day. Executive overview of CMMI for the client. These folks are really keen, so that’s great. Some good English skills too, which is fantastic, since I have the Mongolian ability of a senile snail. Lots of naive questions of CMMI – that’s great too, very few preconceptions so we can really bring our expertise to bear. Really tired at the end of the day, so dinner, then sleep.
Tuesday – Thursday – the Intro to CMMI Dev course. Really quite worried, it can be a loooooonnnnnggggggg experience even for people with English as their first language. But there’s a lot of enthusiasm around the room. We take timeouts so the client team can have discussions in Mongolian then sum it up for me and ask some relevant questions. OK, this is working pretty well. The days go on much longer than usual because of the need to take it slow and have local discussion, but that’s OK too.
Wednesday, one of my contacts invites me out for the evening. We travel to the edge of the city and see a huge golden statue of Bhudda, and above that the memorial to the Russian-assisted revolution led by Subhaktar. Then to a local restaurant for some very European food. Actually, that’s ok, I’m still at work tomorrow so I need a degree of caution.
Thursday sees the end of the course. Everyone gets their certificates. Good Job! Discussion and questions after the end of the course. Then I get taken out again. This time to a show of singing and dancing – definitely laid on for the tourists, but a chance to see something of the local culture. Really appreciate the show. Then dinner and a visit to a local monastery – another huge Bhudda.
Friday. Planning day. What comes next? Well the client certainly has conviction in what they want to do. Maybe their plans need to be grounded a bit more with some real expertise, but it’s really good to see enthusiasm in place of the oh-so-normal-cynicism found back in Blighty. A good opportunity for us to support our new friends in their pursuit of better ways of working.
Out with the senior management team in the evening to enjoy a final dinner. Presented with gifts – one for the office and one for me. Fantastic. Finally an opportunity to try some local food and beer. Take the risk of flying flush-class tomorrow.
And so to bed. Not too late because I have to be up at 4:30am to check out and get to the airport. Back on the Aeroflot flight, this time in rear-gunner class (one up from flush). And I get an empty seat next to me, marvellous. Zzz all the way to Moscow. Read quantum physics between Moscow and London – well some of the time anyway. Back home by mid-afternoon (UK time).
Sunday – sleep till mid-afternoon.
What a great opportunity. To visit a country I guess I would never have got to in my life otherwise. There can’t be many places on Earth so different from the UK. And who knows, if we can continue working with our new friends, perhaps I can go again and get to see more of this exciting country. Better still, at the end of it all we will have helped our client become the first ML3 organization in Mongolia. They certainly have the motivation.
Why “One Idiot” I hear you ask?
Its from a Mongolian Proverb “One idiot can ask more questions than 10 wise men can answer”. Well I certainly asked enough questions, so I guess I must qualify as an idiot.
But at least I’ve been there.
April 28, 2011
CMMI made Practical 2011 – The Photo’s
Posted by Graham Dick under Agile, Change Management, CMMI, CMMI-ACQ, CMMI-DEV, CMMI-SVC, ConferenceLeave a Comment
We’ve already had a lot of very positive feedback regarding this years conference – comments that ranged from how pleased delegates were at the sheer practicality of the even, how it brought CMMI down to earth and to life with many real life case studies. Other delegates were delighted that speakers addressed the complex change management dimensions involved. For me – I think the awesome conference photos just speak for themselves – have a look at them here on flikr.
April 27, 2011
CMMI made Practical 2011 – look back ..
Posted by Graham Dick under Agile, Change Management, CMMI, CMMI-ACQ, CMMI-DEV, CMMI-SVC, Conference, ISO 20000, ITIL, Process ImprovementLeave a Comment
Having just come back after a few days off following this year’s successful CMMI made Practical I thought I would reflect and see what messages seemed to shout out now that a couple of weeks have passed. So impressions …
March 22, 2011
CMMI and Small Organisations – The Resource Challenge
Posted by Andrew Brettle under CMMI, CMMI-DEV, Process Improvement1 Comment
Having earlier fallen in love with a small Company’s wiki (see blog here) its time to explore one of the challenges in implementing CMMI and process improvement in general for small organisations. But first I want to be crystal clear that I’m defining small in terms of staff numbers. Other, less useful, definitions for process improvement use revenue or other financial measures.
March 14, 2011
CMMI SCAMPI v1.3 Introduces More Rigorous Sampling
Posted by neilgrover under CMMI, CMMI-ACQ, CMMI-DEV, CMMI-SVC, Process ImprovementLeave a Comment
As a lead appraiser, I was recently sent a draft of the upcoming version 1.3 of the SCAMPI appraisal method. Normally this would hardly generate much excitement outside the small community who earn their living from conducting appraisals, but this release includes at least one change that looks likely have a significant impact on organisations seeking a CMMI rating.
February 23, 2011
CMMI and Defence Acquisition – its time.
Posted by Graham Dick under CMMI, CMMI-ACQ, CMMI-DEV, CMMI-SVC, Process Improvement, programme management, project managementLeave a Comment
Ouch – another uncompromising report from the Commons Public Accounts Committee – this time aimed at MOD procurement. I appreciate that of course this is an insanely complex high pressured environment that really does play for big stakes – however given that situation how can not being the best of the best be an option? Maybe now is the time to learn from the US DOD and start to apply CMMI as part of the answer to evolving to a robustly more capable DE&S?
The Public Accounts Committee report in question – “The 23rd Report – The Major Projects Report 2010″ can be downloaded here.
CMMI made Practical 2011, held on the 12th and 13th April 2011 has some 70% of speakers from real end user organisations discussing how they have used CMMI to demonstrably increase their capability.
Find out how the US DOD invests in structured capability improvement with Carnegie Mellon’s Software Engineering Institute.
January 26, 2011
How I fell in love with a wiki
Posted by Andrew Brettle under Change Management, CMMI, CMMI-DEV, Process Improvement1 Comment
I’ve seen wiki’s used before in organisations but never really recognised their elegance and beauty as an asset library tool until I was recently assigned to help an organisation achieve CMMI maturity level 2 for its 16-strong development team. Hammers, nuts(!) and plenty of pain came to mind when I started to think about how a small team would realise CMMI. The company, Hornbill Technologies are the development organisation within a larger group (Hornbill), and for their part they focus on developing enabling technologies for use by the wider company, they turned out to be a revelation and a revolution in my own view of Wiki’s.
January 24, 2011
Process Improvement in the Bedroom …
Posted by Graham Dick under Change Management, CMMI, CMMI-DEV, Process ImprovementLeave a Comment
We’ve been doing some work for an organisation – one that achieved CMMI Level 3 in the past. They wished to re-appraise and understandably thought “how hard can that be”?
