CMMI – News and Views

Is this just an excuse to talk about my holiday? I don’t think so… But maybe.

My colleague Graham challenged me to relate CMMI to my skiing holiday which seemed a little tricky at first.  However, I have just been learning a new skill and gone through various stages of learning from unconsciously incompetent to consciously competent. Along the way many techniques have been applied to this: ski school, 1-1 coach, a guide and practice.  This is the first point of reference with CMMI, new process (and skills) can not be applied without using a range of deployment techniques.  This is something which experts in CMMI know but “CMMI novices” often seem not to grasp.  If I had a pound for everytime someone tells me the “just need to get everyone through process training and we have deployed our process” I would be very rich.  One of my favorate questions to ask potential clients is “how long will you speand with someone to change thier way of working?”.  Well you have to at least tell them what your new way of working is, give them a small amount of coaching and check it is being applied – how much time per person is that?

The other area I sort advice was from fellow skiiers on the routes around the mountains.  These people ranged from real experts to novices and the common problem with this type of advice is that they did not know me and my capabilities.  The only people able to provide good guidence in this area were the ski coaches and even then only the ones who had taught me. If I had taken the advice at face value I would be writting this from a hospital bed!  So remember even when seeking the advice of an expert ensure they understand your situation clearly or, better still, have direct exposure to it. This goes for CMMI as well as skiing.