tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-235561902010-02-08T17:09:40.913-05:00Agile CMMI blogA starting point for a discussion on marrying Agile methods and CMMI. The opinions expressed here are the authors' and contributors' and do not express a position on the subject from the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) or any company or SEI Partner affiliated with the SEI.Hillelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04049925009955687531noreply@blogger.comBlogger113125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23556190.post-19877556620925219512010-02-02T17:44:00.003-05:002010-02-02T20:29:31.302-05:00Proper and Improper Use of CMMI<p></p><div style="padding-bottom: 10px; margin: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 10px; display: inline; float: left; padding-top: 0px" id="scid:5737277B-5D6D-4f48-ABFC-DD9C333F4C5D:17aa3b49-93e4-4f8e-9199-3446973be5c2" class="wlWriterEditableSmartContent"><div id="addfc7e1-be1d-41ec-ba10-2d56f7b9e6c9" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline;"><div><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBjwDY7AI0c" target="_new"><img src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_zaYQ63HPGh8/S2jQd1Xz3cI/AAAAAAAAAK8/VNoYT99sPPA/videoc4dde98405ef%5B2%5D.jpg?imgmax=800" style="border-style: none" galleryimg="no" onload="var downlevelDiv = document.getElementById('addfc7e1-be1d-41ec-ba10-2d56f7b9e6c9'); downlevelDiv.innerHTML = "<div><object width=\"213\" height=\"177\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http://www.youtube.com/v/KBjwDY7AI0c&hl=en\"><\/param><embed src=\"http://www.youtube.com/v/KBjwDY7AI0c&hl=en\" type=\"application/x-shockwave-flash\" width=\"213\" height=\"177\"><\/embed><\/object><\/div>";" alt=""></a></div></div></div>Just a few thoughts on some questions to pose as a sort of “guide” for whether or not you might expect benefits and value from using CMMI.  These also have the benefit of helping CMMI be implemented in a more lean/agile approach. <p></p><p>When implementing CMMI, Are you seeking . . . </p><ul><li>Improvement <strong><em>or</em></strong> Compliance? </li><li>Empowerment <strong><em>or</em></strong> Definition? </li><li>Clarity & Awareness <strong><em>or</em></strong> Constraints & Rigidity? </li><li>Bottom-up input <strong><em>or</em></strong> Top-down direction? </li><li>To understand whether what you’re doing is working?  <strong><em>or</em></strong> Whether you’re doing what the process says? </li></ul><p>In this case, we also value the things on the left <strong><em>more</em></strong>.</p><p>:-)</p><p>The things on the right are a longer road, with questionable benefits and many risks.  The things on the left get you to benefits and value sooner with less carnage and baggage.</p><p>Take your pick.</p><script type="text/javascript" src="http://tweetmeme.com/i/scripts/button.js"></script><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/23556190-1987755662092521951?l=www.agilecmmi.com' alt='' /></div>Hillelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04049925009955687531noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23556190.post-43433852754936218462010-01-24T15:41:00.001-05:002010-01-24T15:41:03.606-05:00People over Process . . .<div style="padding-bottom: 5px; margin: 0px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: right; padding-top: 0px" id="scid:5737277B-5D6D-4f48-ABFC-DD9C333F4C5D:92617620-3c28-416a-9f1a-7a7b9c725270" class="wlWriterEditableSmartContent"><div id="0d0eb64d-2704-4d6f-baec-6d8b29636467" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline;"><div><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_D6CryDYyWg" target="_new"><img src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_zaYQ63HPGh8/S1ywXtGhyQI/AAAAAAAAAK0/p6CmoD7_Zqo/video4ceea437123e%5B3%5D.jpg?imgmax=800" style="border-style: none" galleryimg="no" onload="var downlevelDiv = document.getElementById('0d0eb64d-2704-4d6f-baec-6d8b29636467'); downlevelDiv.innerHTML = "<div><object width=\"213\" height=\"177\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http://www.youtube.com/v/_D6CryDYyWg&hl=en\"><\/param><embed src=\"http://www.youtube.com/v/_D6CryDYyWg&hl=en\" type=\"application/x-shockwave-flash\" width=\"213\" height=\"177\"><\/embed><\/object><\/div>";" alt=""></a></div></div></div> <p>The <a href="http://www.agilemanifesto.org/" target="_blank">agile manifesto</a> makes clear the authors’ value of people <em>over</em> process.  With that, many readers/users of the manifesto somehow misconstrue this as “People.  <strong><em>No</em></strong> process.”</p> <p>Others, being more intelligent and reasonable, do see the value of having and using processes, they’re thinking a little beyond the next 11 seconds and are reflecting a bit deeper on the roles of and interplay between people and processes.  Such people are seeing that the real question isn’t about people <strong><em>or</em></strong> process, but that what they struggle with is how to <em><strong>find value </strong></em>in what people do and the processes they perform.</p> <p>Value.</p> <p>That’s a powerful word.  I love this <em>rich</em> word.  You can get all sorts of people to stop and think about what they’re doing when you ask them the value of their effort.</p> <p>Asking about value can come full circle – even for process people.  What’s the <em>value</em>, for example, of checking on a process?</p> <p>Many use process audits, but what’s the value in it?  Especially if the process works fine, and, there’s a cost to check on it – with a net result that you spent time (= money) checking for something that didn’t and might not happen.</p> <p>Calling them <em>“objective evaluation”</em>, CMMI<sup>®</sup> is replete with efforts that are expected to check on processes.  (<a href="http://www.cmmifaq.info/" target="_blank">GP2.9, PPQA, OPF, et al</a>.)  Though, CMMI<sup>®</sup> is purposefully thin on exactly how to accomplish this, many have chosen to carry out “objective evaluation” using ‘audits’.</p> <p>Audits not only invoke a confrontational and defensive entrenchment, but also have the attribute of easily devolving into “process policing” and other non-value-added paradigms.  Don’t misunderstand, we’re not saying it’s not important to keep tabs on your processes, but there are more and less value-added approaches to how you go about doing them.</p> <p>At the risk of sounding too much like advice from an Eastern mountain top, I propose that you allow people to <strong><em>be </em></strong>the process.</p> <p>That is, imbue a cadre of people whose jobs are to know the processes best.  Not CMMI<sup>®</sup> processes, not Agile practices, but the processes the organization wants everyone to know and use.  How else will anyone know what to do?  Great organizations do this all the time.  No one questions their use of such people.</p> <p>Clearly, it would be out of character for me to suggest that you don't have processes, or that you create “lottery sensitive positions” (i.e., critical, single-point-failure positions whose loss would be severely disruptive to success).  So, this is <strong><em>not</em></strong> what I’m saying.</p> <p>But if the idea is that you want everyone to be on the same page, that you want to create processes that people want and love and that they can identify with; </p> <p>if you want to create a reliable culture of excellence where everyone truly participates in creating exquisite results; </p> <p>where everyone is fully invested in the organization and its success; </p> <p>in the language of CMMI<sup>®</sup> -- where the processes are firmly institutionalized; </p> <p>that people who know the process very well and whose jobs are dedicated to helping everyone else learn and use the process are out in the projects coaching and mentoring teams in the process, facilitating retrospectives, demos, peer reviews and whatnot... </p> <p>There isn't a non-CMMI<sup>®</sup> or a non-Agile thing about this! </p> <p>We’re talking about <strong><em>coaching</em></strong>, <strong><em>mentoring</em></strong>, and <strong><em>facilitation</em></strong>.</p> <p>Self-directed, self-organized teams still have coaches, Scrum masters, and someone to turn to when things are stuck or just don't seem to be working correctly... </p> <p>... you want to grow an organization where everyone knows what to do without being told?  <strong><em>Use coaching and mentoring of your patterns in your patterns</em></strong>.  </p> <p>There can be a smaller organization of just such coaches, mentors and facilitators, with others rotating in and out of on some regular cadence, these people can also gather lessons, collect information, spread new ideas, create experiments, and routinely check to see whether and how well what teams are doing is working.  </p> <p>If/when there are new and better ways of doing things, these coaches can help refine them and make them usable by other teams, when things are broken, they help fix them.  </p> <p>Why do audits want to know whether the process is being followed?  If it’s <em>compliance</em>, then it might very well be a waste of time.  </p> <p>The <strong>real</strong> reason is to learn about the process and to use the audit as an opportunity to learn about and share what’s working and what doesn’t.  So, instead of audits, why not jump straight to the real purpose behind them and ask, “what are you doing?” and  “how’s that working for you?”</p> <p>You’ll get the same benefit without all the baggage, waste and negativity.</p> <p>Doesn't everyone know this is what having a <em><strong>defined process</strong></em> is? </p> <p>Doesn't <em>everyone </em>understand that this is how <em><strong>process evaluations </strong></em>or <strong><em>audits </em></strong>are supposed to work?  </p> <p>No?  Really?  Huh!</p> <p>People <strong><em>over </em></strong>Process, Right?  Great!  Let people *be* the process!</p> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://tweetmeme.com/i/scripts/button.js"></script> <div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/23556190-4343385275493621846?l=www.agilecmmi.com' alt='' /></div>Hillelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04049925009955687531noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23556190.post-71955060427331150202010-01-17T16:09:00.000-05:002010-01-17T16:11:51.300-05:00Do you have what it takes . . . ?<div style="padding-bottom: 10px; margin: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 30px; display: inline; float: left; padding-top: 0px" id="scid:5737277B-5D6D-4f48-ABFC-DD9C333F4C5D:a4e8b983-81e9-442b-8ec8-2d6e76993ecd" class="wlWriterEditableSmartContent"><div id="d0658f9f-05c1-4430-86a9-bd3795aa189a" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline;"><div><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8xOVzgWkWg" target="_new"><img src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_zaYQ63HPGh8/S1N9FqJa02I/AAAAAAAAAKw/KC-m45rAUac/videof07f8cf45ff6.jpg?imgmax=800" style="border-style: none" galleryimg="no" width="219" height="183" onload="var downlevelDiv = document.getElementById('d0658f9f-05c1-4430-86a9-bd3795aa189a'); downlevelDiv.innerHTML = "<div><object width=\"219\" height=\"183\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http://www.youtube.com/v/G8xOVzgWkWg&hl=en\"><\/param><embed src=\"http://www.youtube.com/v/G8xOVzgWkWg&hl=en\" type=\"application/x-shockwave-flash\" width=\"219\" height=\"183\"><\/embed><\/object><\/div>";" alt=""></a></div></div></div> <p>To pursue CMMI and/or to reap the benefits of agile requires more than just desire at the working level.  It takes:</p> <ul> <li>honesty</li> <li>learning</li> <li>transparency</li> <li>respect</li> <li>support</li> <li>trust</li> <li>patience</li> <li>commitment (to excellence)</li> </ul> <p>Not just from people who will feel the changes most immediately but from the top-most person in the company on down to those people whose work support the people who will feel the changes most.</p> <p>If you have an executive who declares: we want "maturity level __” by such-and-so date, and doesn’t themselves bother to take the time to understand what that means, you don’t have what it takes.</p> <p>If you have an executive who declares: we want "to be more agile” but doesn’t allow developers to organize their workspace or their time, you don’t have what it takes.</p> <p>If you have an executive who doesn’t care how negatively a drastic poorly considered change will impact the developers, you don’t have what it takes.</p> <p>If you have an executive who expects everyone but themselves to change or expects that hiring an outsider can eliminate the hard work needed to move from the present situation to the desired state, you don’t have what it takes.</p> <p>Might I recommend <a href="http://www.fedmarket.com/seminars/cmmi.shtml" target="_blank">this course</a> for getting to know CMMI, at least.  It can be attended in person or on line.  Live.</p> <div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/23556190-7195506042733115020?l=www.agilecmmi.com' alt='' /></div>Hillelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04049925009955687531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23556190.post-63288072842098546562010-01-10T09:40:00.000-05:002010-01-10T09:41:06.431-05:00Contextually Relevant Experience & Why It Matters<div style="padding-bottom: 5px; margin: 0px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: right; padding-top: 0px" id="scid:5737277B-5D6D-4f48-ABFC-DD9C333F4C5D:8c98bde0-1193-4f28-924a-901b684ae53e" class="wlWriterEditableSmartContent"><div id="7fe551a4-2355-4f45-a063-76a21e6a561c" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline;"><div><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VV9mcnsChQ" target="_new"><img src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_zaYQ63HPGh8/S0nnAa4VIOI/AAAAAAAAAKs/agm4wcVqQmk/video7b8467af4a1a%5B3%5D.jpg?imgmax=800" style="border-style: none" galleryimg="no" onload="var downlevelDiv = document.getElementById('7fe551a4-2355-4f45-a063-76a21e6a561c'); downlevelDiv.innerHTML = "<div><object width=\"196\" height=\"164\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http://www.youtube.com/v/3VV9mcnsChQ&hl=en\"><\/param><embed src=\"http://www.youtube.com/v/3VV9mcnsChQ&hl=en\" type=\"application/x-shockwave-flash\" width=\"196\" height=\"164\"><\/embed><\/object><\/div>";" alt=""></a></div></div></div> <p>Imagine what would happen if you went to a doctor (or any specialist) who had no experience in your specific condition or situation.  Has this every happened to you?  It has to my family when I was young.  Let me tell you, it wasn’t pleasant.  What was frightening was that the “professional” didn’t know that they didn’t have the right experience.  What was just as bad was that my family didn’t have the knowledge or experience to know that the person we went to was not qualified.</p> <p>This is a situation encountered by many organizations when seeking advice and/or appraisal services from a CMMI consultant / appraiser.  However, in business, you should at least know enough about your organization and ways of operating to do your homework before picking someone to help you with CMMI.</p> <p>What you may not have known is that CMMI and the appraisal method are not as clear and obvious as other means of performance evaluation and that you must choose your consulting firm and appraiser very carefully, and among other factors, consider their contextually relevant experience. . . .</p> <div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/23556190-6328807284209854656?l=www.agilecmmi.com' alt='' /></div>Hillelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04049925009955687531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23556190.post-43904107919105051062010-01-06T07:10:00.001-05:002010-01-06T07:13:37.466-05:00Love & Marriage: CMMI & Agile Need Each Other<h4>An article in this month's CrossTalk periodical, is now out.<a href="http://www.stsc.hill.af.mil/crosstalk/2010/01/1001Glazer.html"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px 15px 15px 0px; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" border="0" alt="1001FrontCover-300" align="left" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_zaYQ63HPGh8/S0R9yB8apsI/AAAAAAAAAKo/wnDeCabBKIA/1001FrontCover-300.jpg?imgmax=800" width="189" height="244" /></a> </h4> <p>See it <a title="Link to CrossTalk article on STSC's site." href="http://www.stsc.hill.af.mil/crosstalk/2010/01/1001Glazer.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</p> <p>Download it <a title="Link to download PDF of CrossTalk article from STSC's site." href="http://www.stsc.hill.af.mil/crosstalk/2010/01/1001Glazer.pdf" target="_blank">here</a> .</p> <p>Enjoy!<a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_zaYQ63HPGh8/S0R9MYvZ_LI/AAAAAAAAAKg/vaLhIzvmh7U/s1600-h/hg_signature_blue_FNAME%5B4%5D.gif"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px" border="0" alt="hg_signature_blue_FNAME" align="left" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_zaYQ63HPGh8/S0R9M6K-DiI/AAAAAAAAAKk/VFW3wkw7DeQ/hg_signature_blue_FNAME_thumb%5B2%5D.gif?imgmax=800" width="89" height="70" /></a></p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p>P.S.  There are other great <a title="link to issue Jan 2010 top page" href="http://www.stsc.hill.af.mil/crosstalk/2010/01/index.html" target="_blank">articles in the issue</a> as well.  I'm in great company with an <a title="link to Jeff's article" href="http://www.stsc.hill.af.mil/crosstalk/2010/01/1001Dutton.html" target="_blank">article</a> by my friend, colleague and client, Jeff Dutton.  And, don't miss out what's <a title="link to Mike and Sandy's article on v1.3" href="http://www.stsc.hill.af.mil/crosstalk/2010/01/1001PhillipsShrum.html" target="_blank">coming next in v1.3</a> from my buds Mike Philips and Sandy Schrum!</p> <div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/23556190-4390410791910505106?l=www.agilecmmi.com' alt='' /></div>Hillelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04049925009955687531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23556190.post-22463174824036671632009-12-27T09:26:00.001-05:002009-12-27T09:26:17.044-05:00Picking a Lead Appraiser: "Dammit, Jim! I'm a doctor not a bricklayer."<p><b>In this quote, CAPT Kirk wants Dr. Bones McCoy to do something he feels he's not-qualified to do because he doesn't know how to treat the species. <div style="padding-bottom: 5px; margin: 0px; padding-left: 5px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: right; padding-top: 0px" id="scid:5737277B-5D6D-4f48-ABFC-DD9C333F4C5D:9018f4ac-657b-4071-8cbc-47544110e4ca" class="wlWriterEditableSmartContent"><div id="e90787f3-f4af-45b8-8b4a-cd6672f72b08" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline;"><div><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATzKuORBONQ" target="_new"><img src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_zaYQ63HPGh8/SzduiMwbJmI/AAAAAAAAAKY/kH37L30Wk1U/video1937741ba3de%5B3%5D.jpg?imgmax=800" style="border-style: none" galleryimg="no" onload="var downlevelDiv = document.getElementById('e90787f3-f4af-45b8-8b4a-cd6672f72b08'); downlevelDiv.innerHTML = "<div><object width=\"213\" height=\"177\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http://www.youtube.com/v/ATzKuORBONQ&hl=en\"><\/param><embed src=\"http://www.youtube.com/v/ATzKuORBONQ&hl=en\" type=\"application/x-shockwave-flash\" width=\"213\" height=\"177\"><\/embed><\/object><\/div>";" alt=""></a></div></div></div>   </b></p> <p><b>I'm using it to explain that organizations looking for a lead appraiser to work with them towards an appraisal and/or to perform an appraisal ought to think of what we do as they would think of a doctor, not a laborer or vendor.  </b></p> <p><b>Do you really want the lowest price doctor?</b></p> <p><b>For that matter, is the highest price doctor necessarily the best in town?</b></p> <p><b>When reaching out and interviewing for a lead appraiser or CMMI </b><b>consultant, you:</b></p> <ul> <ul></ul> <li> <p><b>Want the person who is the right person for the job.</b></p> </li> <li> <p><b>Want someone who is qualified (definitely not <em>under-</em>, but preferably not <em>over-</em> either).</b></p> </li> <li> <p><b>Not the lowest bid.</b></p> </li> </ul> <p><b>Seriously, whoever you hire for this effort has in their power the ability to make or break your future.  They literally have the health and well-being of your organization in their hands.  They can put you in the dump just as easily as they can take you to the next level.</b></p> <p><b>They should see themselves that way as well.  </b></p> <p><b>Unfortunately I've got too many sad stories of appraisers/consultants who definitely see that they can make or break you, but they don't feel like they personally <em>own </em>the responsibility for what happens to you when they're done.  </b></p> <p><b>If it costs too much?  <em>So what?   <br /></em>If you get no value?  <em>Not their problem.   <br /></em>Didn't see any benefit?  Didn't learn anything?  Things take longer and cost more and you're not seeing internal efficiencies improve? <br /><em>YOU must be doing something wrong, not them.</em></b></p> <p><b>In an <em>Agile</em>CMMI approach, your CMMI consultant and/or lead appraiser would see themselves as and act like a coach, and would put lean processes and business value ahead of anything else.  And, an <em>Agile</em>CMMI approach would know that when the processes work, they add value; when they add value people like them and use them; when people like and use them, the <em>next “</em>level” is a big no-brainer-nothing.  You get it in your sleep.</b></p> <p><b><a href="http://www.entinex.com/contact.cfm" target="_blank">Let me know</a> if you want help finding the right lead appraiser or consultant.</b></p> <div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/23556190-2246317482403667163?l=www.agilecmmi.com' alt='' /></div>Hillelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04049925009955687531noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23556190.post-39169835503300277412009-12-20T12:06:00.001-05:002009-12-20T12:06:34.942-05:00Worse than Worthless . . .<p>Your people with prior CMM/CMMI experience are probably worse than worthless, they'll probably cause you to fail.</p> <p>Why?</p> <div style="padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 10px; display: inline; float: left; padding-top: 0px" id="scid:5737277B-5D6D-4f48-ABFC-DD9C333F4C5D:d6ac1999-0629-4ed1-8ad8-6a52fa64bd45" class="wlWriterEditableSmartContent"><div id="68dab800-124f-4e13-ad14-bac7deb33f64" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline;"><div><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GCYxXkCcNI" target="_new"><img src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_zaYQ63HPGh8/Sy5ZmtqETUI/AAAAAAAAAKU/ffOs3DiJyXA/video215dfb5e051e%5B3%5D.jpg?imgmax=800" style="border-style: none" galleryimg="no" onload="var downlevelDiv = document.getElementById('68dab800-124f-4e13-ad14-bac7deb33f64'); downlevelDiv.innerHTML = "<div><object width=\"209\" height=\"175\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http://www.youtube.com/v/0GCYxXkCcNI&hl=en\"><\/param><embed src=\"http://www.youtube.com/v/0GCYxXkCcNI&hl=en\" type=\"application/x-shockwave-flash\" width=\"209\" height=\"175\"><\/embed><\/object><\/div>";" alt=""></a></div></div></div> <p>Because what they (or you) think they (or you) know is <a href="http://www.agilecmmi.com/2009/12/everything-you-thought-you-knew-about.html" target="_blank">probably wrong</a> and the advice you’re getting, the expectations being generated are entirely off base.</p> <p>It all goes back to the many ways in which CMMI can be done poorly and the <a href="http://www.agilecmmi.com/2009/11/getting-started-with-cmmi-andor-agile.html" target="_blank">few, simple, but hard work ways in which it can be done</a> correctly.</p> <p>Every time I meet with a new prospect I’m confronted with reams of inaccurate assumptions and assertions about what it will take to implement CMMI and how am I expected to “do all that” and still claim to be “agile”.</p> <p>My simple answer: <em>I’m not going to do all that.  And, you shouldn’t be doing it either.</em></p> <p>Seriously, you’ve got to wonder about executives who will force their company into <a href="http://www.agilecmmi.com/2009/12/so-you-really-interested-in-cmmi-for.html" target="_blank">doing stupid things for the sake of a rating</a> instead of doing their homework to learn about CMMI before they head out on an implementation journey.</p> <p>A recent client didn’t know any better.  They hired a consultant and an appraiser to evaluate their work against CMMI and to help them prepare for a <a href="http://www.cmmifaq.info/#20" target="_blank">SCAMPI</a> appraisal.  Unfortunately, they got as far as the appraisal only to realize they weren’t going to get the target Maturity Level.  (I won’t get into some of the inappropriate behavior of the firm they hired.)</p> <p>However, when this client was confronted with:</p> <ol type="A"> <li>Do something stupid, or </li> <li>Find a better way to do something smart. </li> </ol> <p>They took option B and found a consultant and an appraiser who understood their context and found how to both be on a disciplined improvement path while also remaining true to their own business.</p> <p>Fortunately for them, this client had a <a href="http://www.agilecmmi.com/2009/05/reintroducing-to-software.html" target="_blank">strong engineering backbone</a> and knew what they did worked and were confident in their processes.  Many companies have a while before they can claim that much.</p> <h4>Next week:</h4> <p>Picking a Lead Appraiser:  "Dammit, Jim!  I'm a doctor not a bricklayer."</p> <div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/23556190-3916983550330027741?l=www.agilecmmi.com' alt='' /></div>Hillelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04049925009955687531noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23556190.post-12990604254406578352009-12-15T18:26:00.001-05:002009-12-15T18:26:23.398-05:00CMMI Diet Month 1 Update<div style="padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-left: 10px; width: 263px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: right; padding-top: 0px" id="scid:5737277B-5D6D-4f48-ABFC-DD9C333F4C5D:b27b662b-ee2b-4105-a3e0-733bcf8b59cb" class="wlWriterSmartContent"><div><object width="263" height="219"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/gF8qqtH-yvY"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/gF8qqtH-yvY" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="263" height="219"></embed></object></div></div> <p>I'll start out with observations I noted each week since starting this ridiculous journey.  I wrote these as I went along.  I only edited it for formatting, grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc.  You may see an evolution of thoughts and lessons.  I'll end with the performance outcome from the first month.</p> <h4>WEEK 1</h4> <p>- Don't try to get calories perfect.  Expect calories to be approximate.  Aim for perfect, be content with +/- 20%. <br /></p> <p>- It is very hard to get an accurate accounting of calories, let alone an accounting of all them.  If you try to be "perfect" about it, it would be very easy to get discouraged and to allow the discouragement to become self-defeating.  Keep in mind, it's all data, and we're looking for trends, correlation and causalities.  If it could be perfect, this exercise would not have become (or would ever be) necessary. <br /></p> <p>- Be careful with food labels.  The total calories FREQUENTLY doesn't add up from the sum of the parts.  Typically, the total on the label is LESS than if you calculate </p> <blockquote> <p>Calories = Fat[g]*9[cal/g] + Carb[g]*4[cal/g] + Protein[g}*4[cal/g] based on the individual parts. <br /></p> </blockquote> <p>- Weigh as often as you can (thanks <a href="http://twitter.com/erwilleke" target="_blank">@erwilleke</a>).  At one point this week I was down more than 4lbs, but at the prescribed weighing, I was only down 1lb.  I know that at the prescribed weigh-in time, I was still carrying a number of days of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defecation" target="_blank">b/m</a>.  Had it not been for the earlier mid-week weigh-ins, I might've been discouraged even knowing that I was heavier than I would have been had I expelled my waste.  I must get to "regularity" -- need to drink more of things that aren't dehydrating me.</p> <p> </p> <p>- Make friends with various nutrition/energy bar supplements.  Chosen wisely, they're great for energy, fiber, and a sweet-tooth or dessert.  Also, properly selected, they're great to keep the metabolism going between main meals as well as to stave off being too hungry at meals.  (You don't want to ever be 'starving' at a meal.  <strong><em>bad idea</em></strong>.  In case you were wondering, I've learned you want to be eating at least 200-300 calories every 2-3 hours.  If you find yourself 'starving', you're better off eating something "bad" (like a small candy-bar or other snack) for 100-200 calories to prevent being ravenous at a meal.) </p> <h4>WEEK 2</h4> <p>- Try <em><strong>even less </strong></em>to get the calories perfect.  Seriously, it's not going to happen, and it turns out, it's not the point really. <br /></p> <p>- Good solid healthy meals don't have to have a lot of calories, but you're probably going to have to make them yourself.  <br /><em>Ex:</em> eggs/omelettes for breakfast, without lots (or any) cheese, low-fat wraps, load-up with vegetables. <br /></p> <p>- Keep salad around A LOT and make your own dressing. <br /></p> <p>- You can probably walk on a treadmill every day and not hurt yourself.  In fact, you'll probably benefit from doing so as your body gets used to it and doesn't stiffen back up.  Recent studies are even showing that, for example, 3 intense 10 minute work-outs spread out along a day are probably as good (or better) for you as one 30-minute work out.  I haven't tried that approach yet.  Not sure I'll get to it. <br /></p> <p>- Drink a lot.  Especially things that don't have much caffeine.  Keep water around.  Don't let yourself get too thirsty or you'll drink whatever's within reach and that can also end up being garbage for you.  Otherwise, you'll (a) think you're hungry, and (b) get 'stopped up' -- if you know what I mean. <br /></p> <p>- This week included/ended with Thanksgiving weekend and the start of week 3 included a trip to the Raven's game (i.e., Tailgating)</p> <p> <br />- Weight drop from week 1 returned (mostly) and working it off wasn't working.  Very bummed but surprisingly determined nonetheless.  Re-thinking my strategy. <br /></p> <p>- I perceive that my b/m aren't regular and that I may be quartering excess unevacuated waste -- leading to weight gain/plain this week. </p> <h4>WEEK 3</h4> <p>- Despite a tailgate and several unaccounted meals all weekend since Thanksgiving, Monday AM weigh-in was more than Sunday but still under the starting weight. <br /></p> <p>- Dropping target caloric intake to 2000 calories starting Monday had an immediate effect.  Started losing 1+#/day immediately. <br />- Keeping to 2000 cal/day seems easier than 2400 for some reason.  Suspect the increased calories further increases appetite.  Thinking there's a metabolic tipping point for me somewhere between 2000 and 2400 calories. <br /></p> <p>- Finding a number of high-ROC (return on calories) meals.  Most of which include Amylou's chicken sausages, Morningstar Farms breakfast patties or "Egg Beaters".  Filling, satisfying and YUMM! <br /></p> <p>- Have generally not been counting slow carbs from vegis in my caloric calculations, or skim milk in my coffee.  Do count dressing, fatty additives and cream if used. <br /></p> <p>- When calorie counting is impractical, I'm using the "3 hand plate" rule, aka, the "Fat Loss Plate".  I'm also keen to avoid obvious starches when not able to account for calories. <br /></p> <p>- I honestly don't feel deprived despite several days of significantly low caloric consumption. </p> <h4>WEEK 4</h4> <p>- 2000 cal/day FTW!  Weight moving nicely in the right direction. <br /></p> <p>- Tracking calories has made it easy to associate meals, dishes, and portion sizes to their respective caloric impact.  Just goes to show you how measures have a benefit beyond what the data tells you, but that you can make associations with measures to other (performance) parameters to help guide decision-making even in the absence of precise data. <br /></p> <p>- Worry *EVEN LESS* about calories being perfectly counted.  Shooting for 80% weekly.  With the observations on caloric impact of various dishes, meals, and portion sizes, it's actually becoming easier to worry less about the science and more about observation. <br /></p> <p>- Caloric impact observations together with tracking the calories have also made it FAR easier to take note of how much food is necessary before being full -- this makes it easier to stop eating when no longer hungry, to allow tempting foods to just sit there, to be satisfied with less than what might otherwise seem like a reasonable portion, and to be more attentive to when I'm truly hungry, and what I'm hungry for.  Ex: If I know that a meal made from veggie breakfast patties, sliced veggies and hearty bread is filling, satisfying for H hours and consumes C calories, not only have I learned what a satisfying meal looks like, but also what it does/doesn't have to include in order to be satisfying as well as the calories involved. <br /></p> <p>- I've gone through the spreadsheet and started (where possible) to calculate daily % of Fat, Carbs, and Protein.  NOT EASY to keep to a 40/30/30 balance. </p> <h4>The benefit (and importance) of being regular <br />(I'm talking about process <em>stability</em> what were <em>you</em> thinking about?): </h4> <p>Without it you have no idea WHAT you're capable of.  It would have been nearly impossible for me to get any idea whatsoever of my caloric profile without the several weeks of mostly uniform and nearly ideal conditions I'm experiencing in which to collect measures that I can use when things aren't uniform, ideal, or stable.  <br />This point can't be over-emphasized.  </p> <p>Had I been on travel these last 5 weeks, this entire venture would have likely been a frustrating exercise.  Without the ability to measure most of my meals, with the ability to pay close attention to my appetite, or to exercise regularly, or have any idea/control over what's in what I eat, I'd NEVER be able to get to a point where I can be comfortable not measuring, not worrying, not bouncing from extreme to extreme -- unknowingly. </p> <p>With just a few weeks of data I am confident I can enjoy treats and snacks without dumping all my work down the toilet.  Does this mean I can wantonly, indiscriminately eat junk all the time?  No.  There's never a time when anyone can do that and not pay for it some how.  But it does mean that I can go to a wine tasting and enjoy wines and cheese and snacks and desserts and not worry about it.  Why not?  Because by the time I attended the wine tasting, I had weeks of data to train me in how much I need to eat to be satisfied, how much I can eat before over-eating, and how many calories are in certain foods as a function of food type and visual size.  And, that doesn't even account for the fact that prior to attending the event, I knew how many calories I'd eaten and how many more calories I could still consume and still be in my target range for best results.  In other words, I could operate without the constant data gathering and now use the data I gathered to quantitatively manage my efforts. </p> <p>Your processes must be clearly understood.  You must be able to operate them while accounting for the variables that affect them.  Merely measuring results (weight, for example) without the underlying processes is what you're doing when you measure the performance side only and don't know the variables going into that performance. </p> <h4>The performance of my bottom (line)</h4> <p>Here's what I said I'd do when I started a month ago, alongside what I actually did...</p> <p><em><strong><font color="#0000ff">Planned</font>:</strong>  </em>I plan to eat no more than 2400 calories/day, up to 6 "meals" or snacks per day. <br /><strong><em><font color="#008000">Actual:</font>  </em></strong>I started out at 2400 and dropped to 2000 after 2 weeks.  After changing to 2000 calories max, I wasn't as good at eating 6 meals/day because I didn't want to exceed the upper limit.  Interestingly, I wasn't as hungry on fewer calories.  But 6 meals/day is something I want to do, so I'll be working on it going forward.</p> <p><strong><em><font color="#0000ff">Planned:</font>  </em></strong>I plan to exercise a minimum of 5 days/week. <br /><strong><em><font color="#008000">Actual:</font> </em></strong>During this reporting period I worked out at least 6 days/week. <br /></p> <p><strong><em><font color="#0000ff">Planned:</font></em></strong>  I plan to weigh myself once/week. <br /><strong><em><font color="#008000">Actual:</font></em></strong>  As noted earlier, I'm weighing-in more often.</p> <p><strong><em><font color="#0000ff">Planned:</font></em></strong> I plan to measure my clothes size measurements once/month. <br /><strong><em><font color="#008000">Actual:</font> </em></strong>Did that.  Summary below.</p> <h4>So, how'd I do?</h4> <p>In the first sixth of my effort, I've lost about 25% of my goal weight.  I don't expect this pace to continue much longer, but it's nice anyway.</p> <p>I've lost a surprising 0.5" in neck size, and 1"+ in chest, waist, and hips each.  Also a surprise was losing over an inch in my thigh.  I'm not sure whether that might be a function of where I measured, so I took more specific note of where I measured to make sure I'll measure there again next month.</p> <p>Overall, I'm very pleased.</p> <p>See you next month.</p> <div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/23556190-1299060425440657835?l=www.agilecmmi.com' alt='' /></div>Hillelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04049925009955687531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23556190.post-75567104845809795922009-12-13T10:25:00.001-05:002009-12-13T10:25:08.609-05:00Everything you thought you knew about CMMI is (probably) wrong.<div style="padding-bottom: 5px; margin: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 10px; display: inline; float: left; padding-top: 0px" id="scid:5737277B-5D6D-4f48-ABFC-DD9C333F4C5D:6eeaeb3e-3932-4536-9e06-29de2fec5b4d" class="wlWriterEditableSmartContent"><div id="65b9167b-06df-4956-925f-fab568f22025" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline;"><div><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLivWvfXhPQ" target="_new"><img src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_zaYQ63HPGh8/SyUHU-29eyI/AAAAAAAAAKQ/sz7wFl0l-d4/videoe6f09b16f512%5B3%5D.jpg?imgmax=800" style="border-style: none" galleryimg="no" onload="var downlevelDiv = document.getElementById('65b9167b-06df-4956-925f-fab568f22025'); downlevelDiv.innerHTML = "<div><object width=\"204\" height=\"171\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http://www.youtube.com/v/uLivWvfXhPQ&hl=en\"><\/param><embed src=\"http://www.youtube.com/v/uLivWvfXhPQ&hl=en\" type=\"application/x-shockwave-flash\" width=\"204\" height=\"171\"><\/embed><\/object><\/div>";" alt=""></a></div></div></div> <p>What most people (80/20) seem to "know" about CMMI and the SCAMPI appraisal method comes from what people learned and how they used CMM and CMMI in the early adoption phase. </p> <p>However, instead of innovating and using engineering to create appropriate processes, they just reused old and often poorly-fitting processes and approaches to situations they never dreamed of in the 1980s.</p> <p>Even people with positive experiences with CMM/CMMI tell us that we challenge what they once believed to be “true” of CMMI … but that they’re relieved because many always felt that what they thought was “true” made little sense.</p> <h5>Recommend:</h5> <ul> <li>Entinex CMMI <em>Crash Course</em>™ (<a href="http://www.slideshare.net/hi11e1/entinex-cmmi-crash-course-with-agile-concepts" target="_blank">Slides</a>, <a href="http://www.entinex.com/cmmicrashcourse.cfm" target="_blank">Description</a>)</li> <li><a href="http://www.cmmifaq.info/" target="_blank">CMMI FAQ</a></li> </ul> <h5>Next week:  </h5> <p>Your people with prior CMM/CMMI experience are probably worse than worthless, they'll probably cause you to fail.</p> <div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/23556190-7556710484580979592?l=www.agilecmmi.com' alt='' /></div>Hillelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04049925009955687531noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23556190.post-5469526629400884262009-12-06T09:54:00.001-05:002009-12-06T09:54:48.470-05:00So you're really interested in CMMI for the rating only….<h4>What can you do?</h4> <div style="padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: right; padding-top: 0px" id="scid:5737277B-5D6D-4f48-ABFC-DD9C333F4C5D:dee29bea-e1d0-408c-9e76-a8cb4141fb6d" class="wlWriterEditableSmartContent"><div id="307fce7e-d845-4458-b7e0-b63471b20c7b" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline;"><div><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4t2feFlHdXA" target="_new"><img src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_zaYQ63HPGh8/SxvFty--nBI/AAAAAAAAAKI/3TZZpt1VhKk/videoccd73d1d66e0%5B3%5D.jpg?imgmax=800" style="border-style: none" galleryimg="no" onload="var downlevelDiv = document.getElementById('307fce7e-d845-4458-b7e0-b63471b20c7b'); downlevelDiv.innerHTML = "<div><object width=\"219\" height=\"183\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http://www.youtube.com/v/4t2feFlHdXA&hl=en\"><\/param><embed src=\"http://www.youtube.com/v/4t2feFlHdXA&hl=en\" type=\"application/x-shockwave-flash\" width=\"219\" height=\"183\"><\/embed><\/object><\/div>";" alt=""></a></div></div></div> <p>This entry addresses an important tip in those cases where you need to demonstrate a CMMI rating even though you’d otherwise have no intrinsic business reason compelling you to do so.</p> <p>But first, I admonish organizations doing the compulsory CMMI ratings requirements in the first place.  So, if you’re a company being externally compelled to get a rating (<strong><em>which is different from being told “you need to improve!”</em></strong>), you might want to send a link to this finger-wagging to whoever needs to hear it.</p> <p>However, as such a company being externally compelled to use CMMI (just to get a rating), this tip will make it MUCH easier and more beneficial.</p> <p>Oh, one more thing…. I don’t mention this in the clip: If you’re such a company, don’t look to hire the cheapest, fastest appraiser/appraisal you can find.  Doing that will only make the cost and pain worse.  Both, short-term and long-term.</p> <h5>NEXT WEEK: Everything you thought you knew about CMMI is wrong.</h5> <div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/23556190-546952662940088426?l=www.agilecmmi.com' alt='' /></div>Hillelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04049925009955687531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23556190.post-89823910694263633132009-11-30T20:21:00.001-05:002009-11-30T20:21:30.750-05:00Getting Started with CMMI and/or Agile.<div style="padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: left; padding-top: 0px" id="scid:5737277B-5D6D-4f48-ABFC-DD9C333F4C5D:449ee7c6-7d6a-4505-8ee2-dd74c2ba15b9" class="wlWriterEditableSmartContent"><div id="c9dc38a3-f8c3-490f-88f6-0bc1a38fa761" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline;"><div><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsHuSUOXB9g" target="_new"><img src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_zaYQ63HPGh8/SxRvmVGCDWI/AAAAAAAAAKE/ClxO56nUp0g/video157f6c1c4133%5B3%5D.jpg?imgmax=800" style="border-style: none" galleryimg="no" onload="var downlevelDiv = document.getElementById('c9dc38a3-f8c3-490f-88f6-0bc1a38fa761'); downlevelDiv.innerHTML = "<div><object width=\"234\" height=\"196\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http://www.youtube.com/v/hsHuSUOXB9g&hl=en\"><\/param><embed src=\"http://www.youtube.com/v/hsHuSUOXB9g&hl=en\" type=\"application/x-shockwave-flash\" width=\"234\" height=\"196\"><\/embed><\/object><\/div>";" alt=""></a></div></div></div> <h3>Why you're probably not equipped to be asking the the questions!</h3> <p>Starting a CMMI or Agile initiative is a culture-changing endeavor.  Don't underestimate the changes you'll undergo.</p> <p>Both CMMI and Agile often require fundamental shifts in culture that usually results in making <gasp!> <strong><em>changes</em></strong> to how things are in your business!</p> <p>This in-your-face provocative < 3min video is intended to alert executives interested in either CMMI or Agile (or both) that there are no easy answers as to the question often on their lips: “what does it take to do ____ ?”  And, that to do justice to their business, they’ll need to devote some time to understanding even the basic context in which to understand any answers they receive (let alone use) about deciding to move forward with an improvement effort.</p> <p>After all, if everything were going perfectly now, executives wouldn’t be seeking changes to improve, so when it comes to making improvements, there’s going to have to be change -- so get ready!</p> <p>(I’m assuming [big time] that moving forward with either CMMI or Agile is to achieve some improvement in <em>some</em>thing!)</p> <p>In my next installation, I’ll talk about what to do when you really only need a CMMI ‘level’ and aren’t so much interested in any <em>improvement.</em></p> <div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/23556190-8982391069426363313?l=www.agilecmmi.com' alt='' /></div>Hillelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04049925009955687531noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23556190.post-33447835383137485082009-11-26T14:20:00.000-05:002009-11-26T14:20:28.567-05:00After a bit of disappointing information... Time to grow up!<object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/uYeuDMvNi8g&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/uYeuDMvNi8g&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="400" height="300" align="top"></embed></object><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">What turned out to be a failed meeting with a far away prospect reinforced lessons I learned a while ago.... </span></span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">About what it takes to be successful in business, with Agile, with CMMI, and about creating a culture of excellence.</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Can't wait for the lesson?</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Here's the bottom line: the discipline to improve shows up all the time, everywhere and in every action. Failure to respect time, respect what people know, and the experience/expertise of your subordinates are all BIG CLUES that your organization doesn't have the culture or discipline to succeed. Even when you're in the middle of hiring someone to help you get it.</span></span><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/23556190-3344783538313748508?l=www.agilecmmi.com' alt='' /></div>Hillelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04049925009955687531noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23556190.post-88079821044471534162009-11-15T13:17:00.001-05:002009-11-15T13:17:43.932-05:00My Caloric Rise to High Maturity Health<div style="padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-left: 0px; width: 268px; padding-right: 25px; display: inline; float: left; padding-top: 0px" id="scid:5737277B-5D6D-4f48-ABFC-DD9C333F4C5D:e7f35bb3-a443-4c46-a3ed-c1b44f1afa4f" class="wlWriterSmartContent"><div><object width="268" height="223"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/V-b4kqwEZnc"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/V-b4kqwEZnc" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="268" height="223"></embed></object></div></div> <p>Today I put myself into a program of health and fitness with the express purpose of "putting my body where my mouth is".  For the next 6+ months I plan to track specific health & fitness measures as part of an overall performance objective of increasing my endurance, losing body fat, and gaining better health.  Using the values, principles and practices of high capability CMMI, I will demonstrate statistics & quantifiable results. </p> <p>Making this effort public and committing to report the results by SEPG-Europe 2010 is part of the effort to personally motive myself to stay on track. </p> <p>I plan to track normal effort for about a month, then to begin looking for patterns, correlations, and perhaps even causality.  In particular, I plan to seek processes, baselines, and models that I can begin to experiment with to achieve higher performance and better/faster/long-lasting results.  I would like to be able to have specific patterns and models which I can use and manipulate for specific conditions (such as travel, availability of exercise equipment, lack of planning/control over food choices, and other variations). </p> <p>I would like to be able to further determine the critical sub-factors that I can focus on when I don't have all the ideal conditions for weight and exercise management.  For example, what's more important: total calories or calories from some specific source?  What's more influential: what I eat or whether I exercise?  What should I try to control more: meal frequency or meal size? </p> <p>If I had to pick a few things that I could easily manage over time, which would they be? </p> <p>I would like to result in a long-term sustainable program the works for me no matter what my circumstances, and, if/when I can't control all the variables, what *specifically* can I do to get specific results and how long will it take to get back to where I want to be </p> <p>Using practices from Measurement and Analysis (MA), Project Planning (PP), Project Monitoring and Control (PMC), Process & Product Quality Assurance (PPQA), High Maturity, and others, I will work towards specific process performance objectives in personal health. </p> <p>Business objectives (Within 6 months from 15 November 2009):</p> <ul> <li>Reduce body fat at least 40 lbs.</li> <li>Increase endurance/intensity at least 20%.</li> <li>Reduce waistline to no greater than US size 38</li> <li>Maintain or increase total muscle mass.</li> <li>Understand the influence/impact of processes, patterns and tools on health.</li> <li>Establish a manageable, defined sustainable process for my personal health including:</li> <ul> <li>how much I need to eat and of what</li> <li>how much I should exercise and what types of exercise</li> </ul> <li>Create a long-term strategy for well-being. </li> </ul> <p>The information I need is:</p> <ul> <li>Nutrition data (Calories IN)</li> <ul> <li>What I eat</li> <li>Calories from what I eat</li> <li>Distribution of calories in terms of fat, carbs, protein and fiber.</li> <li>When I eat</li> </ul> <li>Exercise data (Calories OUT)</li> <ul> <li>Type of exercise</li> <li>When I exercise</li> <li>Intensity (specific to exercise)</li> <li>Calories burned</li> <li>How long I've exercised</li> <li>How I feel afterwards</li> </ul> <li>Weight data</li> <ul> <li>Weight</li> <li>Date and time of day</li> <li>Have I eaten before weighing?</li> <li>Have I exercised before weighing?</li> <li>Have I relieved b/m before weighing?</li> <li>Was I wearing clothes?</li> </ul> <li>Clothes size data</li> <ul> <li>Waist</li> <li>Chest</li> <li>Thighs</li> <li>Hips/Butt</li> <li>Neck </li> </ul> </ul> <p>I plan to eat no more than 2400 calories/day, up to 6 "meals" or snacks per day. <br />I plan to exercise a minimum of 5 days/week <br />I plan to weigh myself once/week. <br />I plan to measure my clothes size measurements once/month. </p> <p>For years I've been using the image of a fit man as an example of a "model" for health, and I've been saying that despite the fact that he doesn't represent all men in all situations that he can still be an example of what "fitness" can be.  I usually joke about how, despite the fact that the man-in-the-picture's waist is probably smaller than my own thigh, I can still pursue a level of fitness that works for me that would appear as fit as the man despite our differences. </p> <p>The time has come for me to make good on that joke and to pursue fitness in a way that I have never done before, and, I believe, is a way that I must pursue to finally settle the question for myself of "what does a 'fit' me look like?"  It's a question I've been after for nearly 40 years.  For about the last 10 years I've suspected the answer will be found in a profound exploration of my own personal process performance. </p> <p>I hope to reach my initial objectives in time to: <br />1. Reach a steady state condition such that I can report on both the initial drop as well as some aspects of a "maintenance" state. <br />2. Have something to report by the time the presentation materials are due. </p> <p>For years I've been using a health analogy to describe process improvement; to describe the differences between a prescription and a description of improvement.  With this fitness project, I will demonstrate how a few simple values and concepts can be leveraged into an entire approach using high maturity practices that convert these descriptive concepts into very specific execution of practices that work for me, and can possibly demonstrate both process improvement and high maturity for others. </p> <p>I have avoided this inevitable and dreaded project for years.</p> <div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/23556190-8807982104447153416?l=www.agilecmmi.com' alt='' /></div>Hillelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04049925009955687531noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23556190.post-21055772516718049362009-10-02T10:24:00.001-04:002009-10-02T10:24:48.782-04:00Promo for CEE-SECR and other Links<p>I’ve created this (goofy?) promo at the request of the organizers for the 5th Central and Eastern European Software Engineering Conference in Russia.  It takes place the last week in October in Moscow.  I’ll be delivering a keynote and a workshop on AgileCMMI (of course, what else?).  In particular I’ll be pimping my idea that CMMI and Agile *need* each other.</p> <div style="padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: none; padding-top: 0px" id="scid:5737277B-5D6D-4f48-ABFC-DD9C333F4C5D:3ed5b14f-e726-4fd5-962f-72e0419f6880" class="wlWriterEditableSmartContent"><div id="8f4f6002-0cf6-43b2-a448-1820fd68802d" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline;"><div><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBVWI2gmISA&hl=en&fs=1&" target="_new"><img src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_zaYQ63HPGh8/SsYNL6SB6fI/AAAAAAAAAJQ/FxzGS8gslzA/videoc21a68e2be4a%5B3%5D.jpg?imgmax=800" style="border-style: none" galleryimg="no" onload="var downlevelDiv = document.getElementById('8f4f6002-0cf6-43b2-a448-1820fd68802d'); downlevelDiv.innerHTML = "<div><object width=\"425\" height=\"355\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http://www.youtube.com/v/uBVWI2gmISA&hl=en&fs=1&&hl=en\"><\/param><embed src=\"http://www.youtube.com/v/uBVWI2gmISA&hl=en&fs=1&&hl=en\" type=\"application/x-shockwave-flash\" width=\"425\" height=\"355\"><\/embed><\/object><\/div>";" alt=""></a></div></div></div> <p> </p> <p>As noted, the Webinar with the SEI will be on the same topic.  So far, nearly 400 people have signed up for that!  The direct registration link is: <a title="https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/167857128" href="https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/167857128">https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/167857128</a>.</p> <div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/23556190-2105577251671804936?l=www.agilecmmi.com' alt='' /></div>Hillelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04049925009955687531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23556190.post-26430401693489002492009-09-04T15:14:00.000-04:002009-09-04T15:14:00.469-04:00Upcoming Speaking Events and . . . *discount codes* for you!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.agilecmmi.com/uploaded_images/h_speaking-788972.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.agilecmmi.com/uploaded_images/h_speaking-788970.jpg" /></a></div>A short list of confirmed upcoming events at which I'll be speaking.<br />As I accumulate discount codes, I'll pass them along.<br />I'm also including the (rather thematic) topics on which I'm speaking:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.fedmarket.com/seminars/cmmi.shtml">FedMarket</a> - Entinex CMMI<sup>®</sup> Crash Course. Bethesda, MD USA, <i>and online</i>, 15 October 2009.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.sei.cmu.edu/events/Event-Details.cfm?customel_datapageid_4744=226231">SEI SPIN Webinar</a> - CMMI & Agile Working Together. Online. 15 October 2009.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.scrumalliance.org/events/77-germany-scrum-gathering">Scrum Gathering</a> - Open Space on Agile & CMMI. Munich, Germany, 19-21 October.<br /><br /><a href="http://cee-secr.org/">Central and Eastern European Software Engineering Conference in Russia</a> - Keynote & Workshop on CMMI & Agile Working Together. Moscow, Russia, 28-29 October, 2009.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.sqe.com/agiledevpractices/">Agile Development Practices</a> - Love & Marriage: Why CMMI and Agile Need Each Other. Orlando, FL, USA. 9-12 November.<br /><b>>>> Use discount code: SPAD. <<< <br /></b><br /><b>Click <a href="http://forms.sqe.com/forms/ADP09ContestFormWeb">here</a> for a chance to win 1 of 5 FREE full conference passes.</b> <br /><br />As you can guess, I'm rather keen on spreading the word that it's not enough to merely acknowledge that Agile and CMMI can work together, it's time to start actually doing something to actively implement them together. In fact, I'm going so far as to say <br /><blockquote>due to their respective points of view, instead of beefing up either of them to account for things the other doesn't do, we ought to be using *both*!</blockquote><br />And, if you're not using both, you're going to be left behind, because those that successfully implement the benefits of both Agile *and* CMMI will be unstoppable.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/23556190-2643040169348900249?l=www.agilecmmi.com' alt='' /></div>Hillelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04049925009955687531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23556190.post-47885779148539422362009-08-30T00:26:00.001-04:002009-08-30T19:29:39.514-04:00Where to start. . . .<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.agilecmmi.com/uploaded_images/450px-The_Thinker_close-740970.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://www.agilecmmi.com/uploaded_images/450px-The_Thinker_close-740969.jpg" width="150" /></a></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">So much is going on that what's been keeping me from posting for over two months has pretty much been a lack of focus on where to even start and what to share that is of value.</span><br style="font-family: verdana;" /><br style="font-family: verdana;" /><span style="font-family: verdana;">So, first of all, I must beg your indulgence in what might not be the most advice-filled or productive posting from a reader's perspective. I'm hoping, at least, from my end that it will be somewhat cathartic in helping jar loose something useful for all of us.</span><br style="font-family: verdana;" /><br style="font-family: verdana;" /><span style="font-family: verdana;">I'll start with a list of what I've been up to, professionally, since my last post. </span><br style="font-family: verdana;" /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Maybe that will bring up some salient threads:</span><br style="font-family: verdana;" /></span><br /><ul style="font-family: verdana;"><li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Working on CMMI v1.3 -- specifically coming up with language that will make it through the review board to help provide some Agile perspectives.</span></li><li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Working on an article for <a href="http://www.stsc.hill.af.mil/crosstalk/">CrossTalk</a> on CMMI and Agile "needing" each other.</span></li><li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Preparing presentations and tutorials for: <a href="http://www.scrumalliance.org/events/77-germany-scrum-gathering">Scrum Gathering</a>, <a href="http://cee-secr.org/">CEE-SECR</a>, <a href="http://www.sqe.com/agiledevpractices/">Agile Development Practices</a>, and <a href="http://www.sei.cmu.edu/sepg/na/2010/index.cfm">SEPG-NA-2010</a>, and SEPG-Europe-2010.</span></li><li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Working for the SEI on, and delivering several pilots of, Introduction to <a href="http://www.sei.cmu.edu/library/abstracts/reports/09tr001.cfm">CMMI for Services</a> class.</span></li><li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Becoming a <a href="http://www.sei.cmu.edu/cmmi/tools/peoplecmm/">People-CMM</a> SCAMPI Lead Appraiser.</span></li><li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Learning about the <a href="http://www.sei.cmu.edu/library/abstracts/presentations/11sep2008webinar.cfm">Resiliency Management Model</a>.</span></li><li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Program committee work for <a href="http://www.sei.cmu.edu/sepg/na/2010/index.cfm">SEPG-NA-2010</a>.</span></li><li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Working on strategic issues with SEI for the <a href="http://www.sei.cmu.edu/partners/advisoryboard/">Partner Advisory Board</a>.</span></li><li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Early planning for an AgileCMMI conference (probably 2 days in DC in Winter 2010).</span></li><li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Incorporating more <span style="font-style: italic;">Kanban</span> and lean (process excellence) into our efforts.</span></li><li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Gathering data and case work for at least two books-in-work (one on Agile, another on process excellence).<br /></span></li><li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Of course, there's <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">client work</span> and,<br /></span></li><li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Contrary to what the above list may imply, I'm actually working on transforming the messaging of <a href="http://www.entinex.com/">Entinex</a> to be less SEI-centric and more aligned with what we actually do.</span></li></ul><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Perhaps it's that last bullet that bears some discussion.</span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Despite knowing that we specialize in lean and agile methods in all our work, recently, someone asked whether we only use SEI tools and techniques. Obviously, it seemed an odd question since SEI doesn't provide any tools or techniques with "agile" pasted on them. But it got me to thinking, "yeah, really, what are we truly up to?" And I concluded this:<br /></span></span><br /><blockquote><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Aligning effort with the need to satisfy expectations.</span></span></span></blockquote><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">You can expand on that in a number of ways. Chiefly, whose need? The business' needs. Whose expectations? Customers' expectations. Merely satisfy? Of course, not. To exceed and delight.<br /><br />We bring to bear whatever tools and techniques will help make this happen. <br /><br />In all cases, we're deeply in pursuit of process excellence and what we've learned is that it's irrelevant to lead with anything from either the SEI or the Agile community. What's relevant is results. Powerful ones.<br /><br />In truth, I've known this all along, but our messaging was anything but this.</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br style="font-family: verdana;" /></span></span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Conversations with <a href="http://agilemanagement.net/">David Anderson</a>, </span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><a href="http://ourfounder.typepad.com/">Jim Benson</a>,</span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><a href="http://alistair.cockburn.us/">Alistair Cockburn</a>, </span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><a href="http://www.jessefewell.com/">Jesse Fewell</a>,</span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> <a href="http://www.netobjectives.com/blog/9">Alan Shalloway</a>, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Becoming-Agile-imperfect-world/dp/1933988258/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251604909&sr=8-1">Ahmed Sidky</a> and many others in the agile world, plus my experience working with SEI, SEI Partners, and clients over the last several months have really surfaced some critical distinctions for me about managing effort, developing products, delivering services, and growing organizational competencies.</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br style="font-family: verdana;" /></span></span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Many organizations want to implement agile or CMMI or whatever but they're failing to account for two critical pieces:</span></span><br /><ol><li><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Understanding their own business, their own competencies, the details of their efforts be they services, development, management, (etc.), their own value stream, and everything it takes to get things done and get paid. And,</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Making a business case for <i>change</i> whatsoever. Without the first piece, this piece is worthless, so it's logical that organizations fail to make a business case for changing things if/when they don't understand enough about their business.</span></span></li></ol><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">I find myself more and more having to walk clients and students through both 1 and 2 before we can move on to making meaningful improvements. Neither 1 nor 2 begin or end with Agile or SEI-stuffs. Sometimes we can leverage Agile or SEI-things to help motivate organizations to address 1 and 2, but it's seldom a strong prod. It's become very much like another in a string of tests-of-commitment for clients and prospective clients. We'll lead them to water and it becomes very evident through not just whether they drink, but how they get the water to their mouths as a determinant in our ability to help them become a success story.</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> <br /></span></span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">This is where to start, and if organizations are already here, fabulous. If not, their work is waiting.<br /></span></span><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/23556190-4788577914853942236?l=www.agilecmmi.com' alt='' /></div>Hillelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04049925009955687531noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23556190.post-44683803710516498292009-06-20T22:03:00.004-04:002009-06-20T22:22:20.858-04:00Top 10 Clues You're Not Ready for a SCAMPI<b><img style="float: left; margin-left: 0pt; margin-right: 1em;" id="TopTen" border="0" src="http://docs.google.com/File?id=dgrb65n_11f5nh4qdn_b" height="194" width="195" />10.</b> Four months ago you couldn't spell "CMMI".<br /><br /><b>9.</b> No one in your organization has ever had any training of any kind whatsoever in CMMI, appraisal planning, or process improvement.<br /><br /><b>8.</b> You haven't worked with anyone (in-house or hired) who knows what they're doing with CMMI.<br /><br /><b>7.</b> Price-shopping for lead appraisers seems like a good idea. Kind-a like price shopping for a heart-surgeon.<br /><br /><b>6.</b> After months of work, you switch from one constellation to another and think your appraisal is still on schedule (see #9 and #8). Kind-a like switching your team from field hockey to ice hockey mid-season.<br /><br /><b>5.</b> Your CEO is petulant about the delay of your appraisal yet has no idea that your actual process performance is in the toilet.<br /><br /><b>4.</b> You've waited until it's time to start planning for your SCAMPI to start looking for a consultant to help you implement CMMI in an "agile" way.<br /><br /><b>3.</b> The only people you're sending to <i>Introduction to CMMI</i> are the ones you plan to have on the appraisal. You have no back-up plan if they can't make it to training and/or to the appraisal. Class isn't for another month, and, they're the same ones who've been working on your processes for the past several months, but until now, see #9 and #8.<br /><br /><b>2.</b> You haven't qualified the people in #3 with your lead appraiser (which you haven't hired yet + see #9 and #8), you haven't qualified the projects to be appraised with your lead appraiser (which you haven't hired yet + see #9 and #8), and nonetheless, you have established a level of effort for the appraisal despite all of the above.<br /><br />And,<br /><br /><i><b>The Number One Clue</b></i> You're <b>NOT </b>Ready for a SCAMPI:<br /><br /><b>1.</b> After months of work, you still don't see there's a fundamental flaw in committing to or expecting others to commit to (including your <i>appraiser no less!</i>) a firm-fixed price contract without knowing the requirements.<br /><h4>I wish the above list of clues were tongue-in-cheek.</h4><br /><div>Sadly, it's not. There is, nonetheless, plenty of fiction in it:<br /><ul><br /><li>The order of the list is mostly arbitrary.<br /></li><li>The list is not scientific.<br /></li><li>The list really should be longer. A lot longer.<br /></li><li>These clues are just from my experience alone, and doesn't account for anyone else's, so it's pretty idiosyncratic.</li></ul><br />While in many cases, any one of the items in the list of clues could easily sabotage an organization's process improvement effort (let alone an appraisal), one thing that makes it especially troubling is the preponderance with which I encounter a single organization exhibiting most or all of these clues! And yet, such organizations think they actually <i><b>can</b></i> dictate to their lead appraiser the terms and conditions and the readiness of their organization to be appraised!<br /><br />I tried to limit the clues to only things you could pick-up from a conversation -- even if you know nothing about CMMI or the SCAMPI appraisal method. I tried to keep the clues to things that don't have to do with CMMI itself or process stuff as a general theory. If I had included such items, I would add:<br /><ul><br /><li>You don't know that to do a SCAMPI you actually have to have used the processes on actual projects.<br /></li><li>You don't realize that there's more to CMMI than the names of the process areas.<br /></li><li>You don't realize that the generic goals and practices aren't just "extra information".<br /></li><li>You don't know that it's still the lead appraiser's responsibility to approve the people and the projects to be in the appraisal.</li></ul></div><br />If you look at some of the other behaviors of organizations not really ready for a SCAMPI, you'll find that they continue to:<br /><ul><br /><li>accept more work than they can handle,<br /></li><li>be unpredictable in what they will deliver and when,<br /></li><li>measure little other than billable hours, and<br /></li><li>have no insight into where their defects come from.<br /></li></ul><br />Despite the condition in which many organizations may have artifacts for an appraisal, they have seen no intrinsic benefits to their new set of processes. They've been just "chasing a level", which results in lots of work for no real benefit. You can guarantee these organizations will drop their processes shortly after the appraisal.<br /><br />Really, what these clues point to is the dreadful lack of realization that first and foremost, process improvement requires the right <i>culture</i> for <i>process excellence</i>. The above list points to a fundamental absence of the culture for process excellence. What people don't realize (especially in the USA), is that process <i>improvement</i> is a total JOKE for companies with the right culture of process excellence. If people want the truly idiot-proof, guaranteed, easy path to just about any CMMI Maturity Level, they would need to go no further than to foster a culture of process excellence, then whatever they did from that point forward would likely cause just about every practice in CMMI to form on its own. In other words, these clues <b>aren't</b> about <i>process</i>, they're about <i>culture</i> and <i>leadership</i>. You don't have to know anything about CMMI to pick up clues about culture and leadership.<br /><br />One of the failures of CMMI is that it fails to press the basic importance of culture and leadership for process improvement. It fails to communicate in no uncertain terms that an absence of the right culture (and what that looks like) and the absence of leadership (and how that shows up) will lead to a failure in process improvement -- CMMI or otherwise. I'm not blaming CMMI for not including this information in the text, because much of it <i><b>is </b></i>there. What I'm saying is that despite what is there about the importance of culture and leadership, most CMMI users fail to grasp these important points. The text, therefore, fails to communicate this in a way that people will pay attention. <br /><br /><img style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 0pt;" src="http://docs.google.com/File?id=dgrb65n_133hxd27gb_b" height="211" width="311" />CMMI should come with a warning similar to, <i>"Don't Try This At Home!"</i> or <i>"Use Only as Directed!"</i>, or <i>"Check with a Qualified Professional Before Beginning Any Process Improvement Program"</i>, or <i>"You Must Be *This* Tall to Use this Book"</i>. Or simply, <i>"Danger Ahead!"</i>. <b><i>Something</i> </b>to get people's attention and direct them to some of the fundamentals of any improvement program.<br /><br />This accusation is not just leveled at garden-variety CMMI adopters. Often, they're the hapless "stuckees" forced to "make CMMI happen" against all odds. At least there's ample reason to be sympathetic to their plight. What's inexcusable are the too-many consultants, instructors and appraisers who are willing to ignore these fundamental requirements-for-success and who are unwilling or unable to posture with prospects and clients in such a way as to impart the importance of culture and leadership to success with CMMI. So, that translates to a pathetic statement about the consulting abilities (and possibly the ethics) of too many people who take money to work with others on CMMI.<br /><br />Sorry for the rant. But people need to be warned. Attempting a CMMI effort without the requisite culture and leadership attitude may yield a short-term appraisal rating, but will ultimately lead to medium and long-term failure. *THAT* I can guarantee.<br /><br />This is why I'm such an advocate for agile methods. Agile methods impart some of the basic needs for long-term process success. And, it imparts them at a level of abstraction usable by people who aren't process experts, yet establishes many of the appropriate culture and leadership traits that so many CMMI-only efforts fail to recognize. Agile values, methods, and practices empower their teams, cause leadership to eliminate obstacles, value the input of customers and practitioners alike, values learning, develops multi-disciplined teams, and most importantly (as far as processes are concerned) promotes lean thinking. While Agile ideas may not change leadership and culture over night, they contain many of the right activities that can eventually win over those whose hearts and minds need winning over. And, with the appropriate use of CMMI, agile ideas can kick-start the motion and direction needed for long-term and ongoing improvement.<br /><br />I'll be writing more about why CMMI and Agile need each other for a while.<br />Stay tuned.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/23556190-4468380371051649829?l=www.agilecmmi.com' alt='' /></div>Hillelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04049925009955687531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23556190.post-1223437619698337432009-06-13T19:11:00.002-04:002009-06-13T19:13:22.835-04:00Prague Report: SEPG-Europe 2009<p>Despite half the attendance from 2008, the sessions were of very high <a href="http://www.sei.cmu.edu/sepgeurope/2009/" target="_blank"><img style="border: 0px none ;" alt="image" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_zaYQ63HPGh8/SjQyKu10GTI/AAAAAAAAAJE/2wh02HXujAQ/image%5B5%5D.png?imgmax=800" width="244" align="right" border="0" height="151" /></a>quality and the size of crowd really facilitated an intimate setting to network, eat more than one meal with old and new friends and to have serious conversations about process improvement and the direction of SEI and its Partner network.</p> <p>While it's not an entirely fresh thought, it really hit home for me the extent to which conferences -- and other concentrated spans of time, in general -- have the ability to shake loose new ideas. This conference, sometimes (I admit) <strong><em>unlike</em></strong> other events, I really spent an enormous amount of time and energy reflecting on all-things-process including my own work and company, collaborations, CMMI and other SEI products, and the SEI itself at a strategic level.</p> <p>It's clear that when you spend that much time on learning, studying and inspection of ideas, the constant barrage of collisions and connections, that all sorts of (typically good) things can come of it. Really, I suspect that these not-so-obvious benefits all-too-often go under-appreciated, and under-utilized as secondary and tertiary returns of getting the most from attending conferences and of sending people to conferences. For my time (and money), these events have the potential to be far more value than mere training and seminars. And, this year's, <a href="http://www.sei.cmu.edu/sepgeurope/2009/" target="_blank">SEPG-Europe</a> really made me appreciate that.</p> <p><img style="border: 0px none ;" alt="image" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_zaYQ63HPGh8/SjQyKyfOOkI/AAAAAAAAAJI/trWD0-lqzL8/image%5B10%5D.png?imgmax=800" width="181" align="left" border="0" height="244" /> The only event on Monday was a workshop on <a href="http://www.sei.cmu.edu/publications/documents/09.reports/09tr001.html" target="_blank">CMMI for Services</a> which included several spirited discussions about model content and applications. An idea-generating session was conducted for how to address qualifications, continuing education, and related credentialing, for qualifying Partners to teach a new training class I'm helping develop in my role as an SEI Visiting Scientist. This discussion warmed up to even higher heart rates. (In a good way.)</p> <p>Tuesday was the official tutorials day. My <em>CMMI Crash Course</em> could have gone better -- I was dreadfully under the weather from something I ate the night before. I also had it confirmed for me that the European crowd of novices is very different on many levels than American, British and other cultures. I couldn't get people to participate even with (mock) threats and jokes. They simply wouldn't open up. While they would ask questions at times, if I asked a question, they'd wait for me to answer it -- even when prompted them to answer. It came across as though one Danish student had more courage and better answers than the room full of working professionals. </p> <p>While having the best of intentions to attend afternoon tutorials, I found myself back in bed, skipping lunch and dinner and only emerging once or twice to grab something to drink to stave off dehydration.</p> <p>The exhibit area opened Tuesday evening, and I showed up with my shirt hanging out, no jacket or socks and looking very much like someone dragged me outside in the rain, hastily dried me off, then stuffed me into well-worn clothes. But, by the evening I was feeling better. Good enough to go down to the adjacent mall to buy 2 bottles of PowerAde. Once of which didn't even survive to see me emerge back out from the mall.</p> <p>Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were the main conference days. Each one filled with excellent content. (You can download highlights <a href="http://www.sei.cmu.edu/sepgeurope/2009/" target="_blank">here</a>.) A former client of mine, Kevin Williams started my Wednesday day off with superb content on his (<a href="http://www.wabtec.com/railroad/systems.asp" target="_blank">former</a>) company's CMMI journey complete with metrics, examples, and lessons learned. It was a genuinely rich and rewarding example for how small and agile organizations can stay agile, use CMMI to benefit their work and get a desired rating. Kevin reported that despite having left the company and not having been replaced, the processes put in place under his leadership are still in use.</p> <p>His session would have been better attended (by more people who really needed the information) had it not been for a slight oversight that left the word "Agile" out of his presentation and abstract. As a result, Kevin's 40-minute slot was opposite the start of a half-day tutorial on agile and CMMI from <a href="http://www.kasseinitiatives.com/" target="_blank">Tim Kasse</a> who really put agile and CMMI under the engineering microscope -- at least while I sat in on the 2nd half of it, so I assume the earlier half was as hard-hitting.</p> <p>It was hard to tear myself away from the excellent networkin<img style="border: 0px none ;" alt="Clock tower after dusk ~9pm" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_zaYQ63HPGh8/SjQyLp0_NgI/AAAAAAAAAJM/ODWZN1dojBM/image%5B15%5D.png?imgmax=800" width="244" align="right" border="0" height="185" />g to get back into sessions throughout the week. Then, once I got back inside, there were other obligations keeping me from staying. For example, to go "play expert" for an "Ask the Experts" break-out, I had to bail out half way through <a href="http://www.naturalspi.com/" target="_blank">Michael West's</a> insightful work and thoughtful mini-tutorial (complete with hands-on exercises) on process design and communication.</p> <p>The first keynote speakers started Thursday, but afterwards, the highlight of my Thursday sessions was <a href="http://www.lamri.co.uk/" target="_blank">John Hamilton's</a> talk on complex process concepts for absolute beginners. He was highly energetic, entertaining, and very crammed full of excellent advice. I'm "borrowing" several turns of phrase from him -- which is only fair considering he borrowed a number of ideas (and words) from me. Fair trade. (Be flattered, John, I am!) ((John actually asked me about his use of the ideas at his company's <a href="http://www.cmminews.com/" target="_blank">recent conference</a> -- where I also spoke.)) I believe it's from John that I <a href="http://twitter.com/hi11e1/status/2118163555" target="_blank">tweeted</a> about where the real improvement begins.</p> <p>Friday. Ah, Friday. The way Friday got started was surely a sign of good tidings. <a href="http://www.ericsson.com/" target="_blank">Tony Devlin's</a> keynote was simply inspiring. My <a href="http://twitter.com/hi11e1/status/2128929201" target="_blank">tweets</a> (<a href="http://twitter.com/hi11e1/status/2129045786" target="_blank">also</a>) from it don't even tell the half of it. Talk about true maturity. Do they *get* this stuff or what?! I can't even bring myself to write about it out of fear of not having time to sleep tonight once I start. I expressed my thanks afterwards and expressed a request for learning from them and extended an open offer to answer questions from my experience in return. He graciously provided me with his email address and said he'd bare all. Then to have had lunch with him was a real treat. I was already eating with 2 SEI personnel (including Mike Philips the program manager for CMMI), and with one open space, Tony asked to join in. After making a fool of myself over light banter -- in which I forgot an actor's name, thereby forgetting his nationality, and only remembering that he portrayed an Irishman in a movie, causing me to think he was Irish, only to be admonished for confusing Irishmen with Scots when someone recalled the actor for me -- we got back to discussing his experience and solidified our intent to exchange information.</p> <p>Friday was no where nearly done. A session on multi-model collaboration by Kobi Vider-Picker was incredibly well-researched and his audience was full and attentive. He basically laid-out how well the CMMI suite can handle dozens of standards, guides, regulations, etc. I understand he doesn't need to sleep or eat much. It must be how he finds the time between all his work to do such thorough research. The next session was by Malte Foegen, the <a href="http://twitter.com/hi11e1/status/2130842957" target="_blank">tweet</a> from that session set off a chain-reaction of re-tweets. Probably my longest ever. </p> <p>Lastly, my mini-tutorial based on the SEI <a href="http://www.sei.cmu.edu/publications/documents/08.reports/08tn003.html" target="_blank">Technical Note</a> probably had about a third of the entire attendee roster. Of course, by 4pm on Friday, nearly the entire roster had already started out for the airport. By this point, people were more open to volunteering discussion. Nonetheless, I was struck by how deeply ingrained certain ideas about CMMI (and Agile) have been etched. Despite months of promoting the subject since the publication (years prior to that online); despite the availability of the <em>Crash Course</em>, and other sessions from other events, despite all the presentations throughout this and other SEPG events, and for many, having sat through the <em>Crash Course</em> just days before . . . some misperceptions about CMMI and Agile (such as <em>how</em> certain practices "must" be done, or <em>what</em> constitutes "evidence", or that process <em>definition</em> is process "restriction") just are almost too hard to give up.</p> <p>There is work ahead still.</p> <p>I'm on it.</p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/23556190-122343761969833743?l=www.agilecmmi.com' alt='' /></div>Hillelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04049925009955687531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23556190.post-65226802218177530762009-05-04T21:54:00.001-04:002009-05-04T21:54:22.834-04:00Reintroducing "engineering" to software.<p>I've been noticing an interesting "convergence" going on in this corner of the universe:  "engineering" is being re-introduced to the idea of software.  It's fascinating how no sooner do I have the idea to write this blog (while entirely not connected to the Internet), then I re-connected to get <a href="http://tinyurl.com/d64gxx" target="_blank">an article</a> that's entirely speaking of the same root issue.<a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_zaYQ63HPGh8/Sf-cJU8EN9I/AAAAAAAAAIM/rXGRTYITKmU/s1600-h/image%5B7%5D.png"><img style="border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-bottom: 0px" height="163" alt="image" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_zaYQ63HPGh8/Sf-cKr8ZgAI/AAAAAAAAAIQ/YVy9YdfQ10w/image_thumb%5B3%5D.png?imgmax=800" width="244" align="right" border="0" /></a> </p> <p>Of course, I'm not saying that engineering had completely left the software universe, though, a strong argument can be made that for the last decade and then some, software has allowed <strong><em>engineering</em></strong> to escape from the premises.  In particular, architecture, analysis, systems thinking, design, hardware and other integration issues, and planned, deliberate, methodical testing have largely been allowed to merely "emerge" from the work that was completed.</p> <p>Again, I'm not advocating for Big ____ Up-Front as a solution, what I'm pointing out is that many people who embrace agile methods incorporate engineering practices into how they organize and perform their work, but enough <em>don't</em> that it raises issues with agile scalability.</p> <p>And here's where I *am* expecting to annoy some people... </p> <p><em>Programming</em> and <em>Development</em> are NOT the same.</p> <p>Development is an engineering function.  Develop<em>ers</em> ought to be using engineering practices in what they do.  Just look at the word "development".  The connotation is that something is "grown" or "evolved".  The denotation of 'development' in the technical sense is that it is done deliberately, not by happenstance.</p> <p>This idea is where I believe software, in general, not limited to <em>agile</em> practices have short-changed themselves.  Too often, activities that amount to nothing more than <em>programming</em> are called <em>development</em> when no actual <em>engineering</em> is happening.  In other words, programming is allowed to take place without any (or at best without <em>enough</em>) engineering, and therefore what's really happening is the building of something without any/enough forethought about the thing itself that is to be built.  Instead, what happens too often is all the focus is on "staying busy" (albeit on ostensibly priority work), but what is worked on is absent sufficient technical rhyme or reason.</p> <p>Is this true of <strong>all</strong> agile development?  <strong>NO.</strong>  But, it <strong>is</strong> what happens in many organizations when they don't have sufficient technical leadership.  For what it's worth, many development projects don't need much engineering, and product development is sufficiently described in tasks defined by few people.  So the jump from <em>development</em> to <em>programming</em> is small and fast.  </p> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_zaYQ63HPGh8/Sf-cMKIy7BI/AAAAAAAAAIU/X7n1S1jF6GU/s1600-h/image%5B17%5D.png"><img style="border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-bottom: 0px" height="244" alt="image" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_zaYQ63HPGh8/Sf-cNewGPyI/AAAAAAAAAIY/7vsozBxkiC4/image_thumb%5B8%5D.png?imgmax=800" width="216" align="left" border="0" /></a> However, there are projects (or tasks) of sufficient technical complexity that skipping the <em>engineering</em> and handling such projects/tasks as <em>programming</em> alone is where I believe a space is created for the unfair reputation for agile and its scalability, as well as some of the anti-process bias among agile proponents.  When I read (and sometimes contribute) to agile and non-agile software groups, I'm often struck by the same thought: where's this person coming from?  This is <em>basic</em> engineering!</p> <p>But that's the matter, isn't it?  <em>Programming</em> isn't <em>development</em> without engineering and too many programmers aren't engineers (not should they be) but are being told to "develop" without given the time or resources or <em>something</em> to do the engineering.  And so what they're really being told to do is "program", not "develop".  Someone, somewhere doesn't see and/or understand that what many projects need are to be <em>engineered</em>.</p> <p>I think what this points to is a persistent phenomenon plaguing software: it's not being taken seriously as an engineering discipline.  Sometimes by leadership in organizations where software is being worked on, sometimes by programmers and sometimes by customers.  I'm sure there's plenty of blame to spread around, and spreading the blame is both a waste of time and not the point at all.</p> <p><em>Programming</em> is to software as <em>assembly</em> is to construction.  Not <a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_zaYQ63HPGh8/Sf-cQ85pGYI/AAAAAAAAAIc/zvM7tntufqU/s1600-h/image%5B18%5D.png"><img style="border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-bottom: 0px" height="167" alt="image" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_zaYQ63HPGh8/Sf-cSUnzALI/AAAAAAAAAIk/d6ob-QRsTq4/image_thumb%5B9%5D.png?imgmax=800" width="244" align="right" border="0" /></a> everyone swinging the hammer needs to be the civil engineer nor the architect, and not everyone with a nail gun can be the foreman (and <strong>no,</strong> I'm not likening the skill set of programmers to those of construction workers, and <strong>no</strong>, I'm not saying construction workers aren't smart....<strong><em>geez</em></strong>).  There has to have been engineering taking place before software can be actually <em>developed</em>, and as evinced by the kinds of challenges I encounter regularly, enough software shops are going about their work absent acknowledgement or awareness or consideration for the engineering that has taken place or has yet to take place (or should have taken place but didn't[!]).</p> <p>Process stuff generally finds its roots in engineering.  Especially process stuff as found in CMMI for Development.  Excepting processes that are over-engineered, are themselves lacking in engineering, or are odious even alone in a room, I'm beginning to piece together that resistance to processes in general, and CMMI in particular, is actually from a lack of <em>engineering</em> discipline in the software practice and not from anything intrinsic to process as a topic.</p> <p>It's no wonder CMMI is so hard to use by so many, it assumes people<a href="http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2006/03/how_to_be_an_ex.html" target="_blank"><img style="border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-bottom: 0px" height="244" alt="image" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_zaYQ63HPGh8/Sf-cTKMplZI/AAAAAAAAAIo/dj8DIEqcM1I/image%5B19%5D.png?imgmax=800" width="237" align="left" border="0" /></a> are not only <a href="http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2006/03/how_to_be_an_ex.html" target="_blank">experts</a> in process improvement, it also assumes everyone using it is an engineer.  Some people are nail-gun swingers, worried about getting enough done that day to avoid having to work on the weekend.  Meanwhile, someone else already worried about in what order to build piece the trusses together and someone before that worried about the right number of trusses and their thickness and someone before that worried about its shape.</p> <p>It's becoming fairly clear that anyone fooling themselves into believing that agile advocates not doing an architecture <em>at all</em>, or a design <em>at all</em>, or other engineering activities <em>at all</em> are doing themselves a disservice.  In fact, I'd go so far as to say that once an architecture has been settled upon and once a design becomes clear, that agile practices can happen more freely and effectively.  More so, I'd assert that the future of agile "scalability" depends on these.</p> <p>What I and a colleague are setting out to do over the next few months is help agile scale by re-introducing <em>engineering</em> to software, and while we can't fix the software universe, we hope to help agile out by giving it some engineering practices that software (as a whole) lacks -- not everywhere, just in too many corners -- but that we believe agile can really take and run with.</p> <p>Let me know if you want to play with us.</p> <div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/23556190-6522680221817753076?l=www.agilecmmi.com' alt='' /></div>Hillelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04049925009955687531noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23556190.post-10435316041223743982009-03-26T23:40:00.001-04:002009-03-26T23:40:20.983-04:00Field notes from SEPG-NA 2009 - Thursday<p><img style="border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-bottom: 0px" height="244" alt="image" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_zaYQ63HPGh8/ScxKoSx3BpI/AAAAAAAAAHo/R_u4QgXQWiA/image%5B4%5D.png?imgmax=800" width="171" align="left" border="0" /> San Jase, CA.  Actually there won't, unfortunately, be much to report today as I was side-tracked from all but one session.  The session I attended was an experience report from a lead appraiser working with a company whose total size was all of 12 individuals.  In fact, they were a distributed workforce with no central offices.  Everyone worked from home.  This was a report on how they achieved CMMI ML3.  The company itself had very impressive results made possible by very impressive people and attitudes.  Let's get one (or two) things straight immediately: (1) they really truly were ML3, no corners cut, they really truly did the work of defining, managing and using their processes, (2) they did NOT need CMMI to be disciplined -- to a person they were highly skilled, highly technical, supremely professional, absolutely committed their work and company, incredibly laid-back, and <em>deadly serious</em> about NOT causing themselves work that was not fun and benefit the work and company.</p> <p>The moral of this story is that the primary driver of improvement (of any flavor) is first and foremost <strong>attitude</strong> and <strong>culture</strong>.</p> <p>Moving on.  I stopped by <a href="http://www.agilemanagement.net/" target="_blank">David Anderson's</a> last talk of the conference on Metrics and Agile, and once again, it was close-the-doors-room-is-full SRO.  While other sessions were letting out early and people were streaming out right at the stop time (time for lunch!), David's session was full until kicked out.  Once again, put CMMI, Agile, and Maturity in the same space and sparks fly.  Dave impressed several very important people.</p> <p>That's all I have to report today about the conference.  Stay tuned for SEPG-NA 2010.  I'm contributing to the program committee and know there are some really great things in store.  Planning for it started today and I've got action items due.  :-)</p> <div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/23556190-1043531604122374398?l=www.agilecmmi.com' alt='' /></div>Hillelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04049925009955687531noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23556190.post-70609291353631440402009-03-25T20:30:00.001-04:002009-03-25T20:30:01.717-04:00Field notes from SEPG-NA 2009 - Wednesday<p><img style="border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-bottom: 0px" height="219" alt="IMGP0705-400" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_zaYQ63HPGh8/ScrMd_hsyUI/AAAAAAAAAHM/hwDOkxWOG8E/IMGP0705-400.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" align="left" border="0" />San Jose, CA.  Behold: <a href="http://alistair.cockburn.us/" target="_blank">Alistair Cockburn</a>.  At the end of <a href="http://www.sei.cmu.edu/sepgeurope/2008/" target="_blank">SEPG-Europe</a> 2008, I was in a conversation with SEPG program chair, <a href="http://www.sei.cmu.edu/staff/cpg/" target="_blank">Dr. Caroline Graettinger</a>.  We were discussing the theme of the 2009 series of SEPG conferences on <em>Next Generation</em> of process.  I immediately thought of and fired off an email to Alistair.  Intrigued, he said that he's working on a very similar sounding set of ideas calling them, <em>Software Development in the 21st Century</em>, and accepted shortly thereafter. </p> <p>This ideas are based in metaphors to help really manage software development the way software is really developed.  Cooperative Games, Craft, and Lean.  The details of this talk are on Alistair's <a href="http://alistair.cockburn.us/" target="_blank">web site</a>.<img style="border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-bottom: 0px" height="184" alt="IMGP0719-400" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_zaYQ63HPGh8/ScrMeUZ4D_I/AAAAAAAAAHQ/DtbincVH7Yw/IMGP0719-400.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" align="right" border="0" /> </p> <p>Alistair was poignant (despite mentioning me by name) and funny and fielded questions from the audience.  Kudos my friend.</p> <p>Another Jim as Sr. Director for Software Quality, Jim Sartain, currently at <a href="http://www.adobe.com/" target="_blank">Adobe</a>, came next.  Previously at Intuit and before then HP.  Leading with the fact that <a href="http://www.sei.cmu.edu/tsp" target="_blank">TSP</a> goes where he goes.  (See more later.)  He showed the same slide from <a href="http://www.agilecmmi.com/2009/03/field-notes-from-sepg-na-2009-tuesday.html" target="_blank">yesterday's</a> Intuit presentation showing "most admired companies" where Intuit is #1 and Adobe is #2.</p> <p>ANOTHER "quality" person with a REAL personality!  A clean-sweep for great SEPG speakers!  Too bad the economy kept more people from experiencing them!<img style="border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-bottom: 0px" height="244" alt="IMGP0720-400" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_zaYQ63HPGh8/ScrMe0WgjhI/AAAAAAAAAHU/lP6V1V2wT2c/IMGP0720-400.jpg?imgmax=800" width="194" align="left" border="0" /> </p> <p>Jim spoke about giving engineers the tools and work-life balance that can double their productivity and morale. Note: research this when there's time.  And while I'm at it, research why it's the commercial companies of the world who truly embrace quality culture and the government-oriented ones don't.  (Never mind, that's rhetorical.)</p> <p>Wanna "get" how serious they are?  They frakking flew <a href="http://www.sei.cmu.edu/tsp/people/humphrey.html" target="_blank">Watts Humphrey</a> in to San Jose to launch TSP <strong>and</strong> brought as many engineers from around the world in to hear it.  But since their operations in India are so significant, they did it again in India!</p> <p>Their results with TSP are beyond quality improvements, but work-life balance, team commitment, team self-direction, senior leadership buy-in (removing <img style="border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-bottom: 0px" height="184" alt="IMGP0723-400" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_zaYQ63HPGh8/ScrMgEeE9VI/AAAAAAAAAHY/MVihlWOKRoM/IMGP0723-400.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" align="right" border="0" />obstacles).  TSP provided a means of measuring the effort and using that data to negotiate better expectations.  (Both Alistair and Jim noted the importance of metrics to transparency and improvement.)  Jim also took questions including why to wrap TSP in Scrum.  Reasons: (1) Product owner, and (2) defined "done" at each iteration.  It turns out that TSP came to Adobe, not because of Jim bringing it rather because people at Adobe heard the great TSP stories coming from Intuit and "want sum'dat!" </p> <p><img style="border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-bottom: 0px" height="184" alt="IMGP0727-400" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_zaYQ63HPGh8/ScrMgl1HJ9I/AAAAAAAAAHc/rQJiPtjGxUc/IMGP0727-400.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" align="left" border="0" /> A first for SEPG, was the inclusion of time between the morning's keynotes and lunch for very user-group-<em>esque</em> "peer to peer" sessions.  Conference participants self-selected into table-top discussions driven by other attendees, not selected by the conference program.  In fact, attendees put up topics and volunteered to lead them -- or put up topics in hopes of someone else showing up to lead and play subject-matter-expert.  To no-one's surprise, <a href="http://www.agilemanagement.net/" target="_blank">David Anderson</a> signed up for agile and lean discussions.  (David's in the ruddy color left of center in the image.)  And, again, to no-one's surprise, there were more people interested in this topic than room at any one table, so the conference logisticians moved the crowd to its own room where, as can be seen in the photo, numbered several dozen people.  Subsequent to this image, more arrived and were standing around the seated area.  One might sense a trend of growing interest in this population for the last few years whenever the terms "CMMI" and "Agile" are put together, eh?  As it turns out, of the several simultaneous peer-to-peer sessions, the two with the most participants were the <em>Agile</em>-related one and the TSP one.</p> <p>(Well, super insider's double-hush secret preview scoop of things to come: expect Agile, Lean, and TSP to start showing more prominently both at SEPG and throughout the work being done at SEI.)</p> <p>David lead <em>Achieving High Maturity with Kanban</em> mini-tutorial.  His talk was mostly about the culture necessary to achieve high <img style="border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-bottom: 0px" height="244" alt="IMGP0728-400" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_zaYQ63HPGh8/ScrMhdafidI/AAAAAAAAAHg/8JZZi0MD9yQ/IMGP0728-400.jpg?imgmax=800" width="209" align="right" border="0" />maturity and how <em>Kanban</em> can facilitate it that.  But describing it that way makes it sound like it was a commercial for <em>Kanban</em>.  It wasn't.  It was about culture's and measurement's roles in maturity of development, productivity, quality and production management.  How the data drives the actions of the teams and these actions can be demonstrably linked to things that can actually be managed.  One way to summarize is in how he said, that "level 5" results are achievable by setting expectations of level 5 behavior as a matter of culture.  It's telling that David's session spanned 2 normal sessions.  People had the opportunity to leave mid-way and go to other sessions.  Despite other session opportunities, there was a net gain of attendees in David's session.</p> <p><a title="SlideShare link to full presentation." href="http://www.slideshare.net/hi11e1/1903glazer1" target="_blank"><img style="border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-bottom: 0px" height="183" alt="image" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_zaYQ63HPGh8/ScrMiNpvKuI/AAAAAAAAAHk/b2zr_py4UEM/image%5B4%5D.png?imgmax=800" width="244" align="left" border="0" /></a>After that, came me.</p> <p><em>The CMMI Guide to the Perplexed.</em></p> <p>Well-attended, many friendly faces and most people seemed to enjoy it.  Lots of positive feedback... of course, detractors seldom tell you to your face, do they!  You can get the presentation <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/hi11e1/1903glazer1" target="_blank">here</a>. </p> <div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/23556190-7060929135363144040?l=www.agilecmmi.com' alt='' /></div>Hillelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04049925009955687531noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23556190.post-30252988582083863222009-03-24T23:57:00.002-04:002009-03-25T08:58:21.557-04:00Field notes from SEPG-NA 2009 - Tuesday<p>San Jose, CA. Day started (for me) @ 4:45am PDT (which my body believed to be 7:45am) with a work out, some email and chat, quick breakfast, and a teleconference with a prospective client. I arrived to the conference hall just as <a href="http://www.sei.cmu.edu/topics/about/press/releases/nielsen-bio.html" target="_blank">Dr. Paul Nielsen</a>, CEO of SEI was introducing the first keynote, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Cook" target="_blank">Scott Cook</a> co-founder of <a href="http://www.intuit.com/" target="_blank">Intuit</a> Inc. (now chairman of the company's Executive Committee of the Board).</p> <p><a href="http://www.intuit.com/"><img style="border: 0px none ;" alt="Intuit" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_zaYQ63HPGh8/ScmrlzkZf7I/AAAAAAAAAGw/SPT92nCY63w/Intuit%5B4%5D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" align="right" border="0" height="184" /></a> Impressive start-up story, but more impressive is their use and integration of <a href="http://www.sei.cmu.edu/tsp" target="_blank">TSP</a> and Agile (<a href="http://www.scrumalliance.org/" target="_blank">Scrum</a>).</p> <p>He also told the old story about <a href="http://www.chevrolet.com/" target="_blank">Chevrolet</a> and <a href="http://www.toyota.com/" target="_blank">Toyota</a> in which Toyota ran a Chevrolet factory in this area using their production system keeping Chevrolet's <a href="http://www.uaw.org/" target="_blank">UAW</a> employees. Resulting in turning the worst plant in the company into the best Chevy plant in the entire company. Anyway, he probably spent too much time on that story. Unfortunately, too many people in these circles aren't <em>professionals</em> in process improvement to know that story -- which is now part of the process improvement lore.</p> <p>Though he summarized TPS in an interesting way, saying that it's a process for rapid experimentation. I can see how he'd come to that conclusion considering the emphasis with TPS on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaizen" target="_blank">Kaizen</a>. He also spoke about the lack of process improvement in businesses who would desperately need it, like hospitals today in the USA. (I should note that <a href="http://www.upmc.com/" target="_blank">UPMC</a> is an exception in leading the way. Get with it everyone else!)</p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_zaYQ63HPGh8/ScmrmV3d1mI/AAAAAAAAAG0/2_eA7hn9-1Q/s1600-h/EMC-400%5B10%5D.jpg" target="_blank"><img style="border: 0px none ;" alt="EMC-400" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_zaYQ63HPGh8/Scmrm6I6MnI/AAAAAAAAAG4/FPJZkgNPa28/EMC-400_thumb%5B4%5D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" align="left" border="0" height="184" /> Jim Bampos</a>, VP of Quality at <a href="http://www.emc.com/" target="_blank">EMC</a> spoke as the next keynote. Turns out he was a toy tester for <a href="http://www.hasbro.com/" target="_blank">Milton Bradley</a> when he was in kindergarten. Spoke about leveraging processes and process improvement to facilitate their Total Customer Experience ("TCE") program. The way I'd say the same thing — to my clients, not to correct Jim — is that it's necessary to connect process effort to business values and goals. Nice. Jim was up-front that they have no interest in CMMI appraisals, and he didn't know the CMMI appraisal lingo, which made the sincerity of their effort that much more obvious. He mentioned that after several months of process improvement effort and measurement, that despite having great data, it still didn't connect to their "TCE". <strong>Very</strong> poignant!</p> <p>Very refreshing keynote in that he was brutally honest about quality and findings of their investigation into what drives customer experience and loyalty. They take process so seriously that they tie improvement to metrics, goals and bonuses.... FROM THE CEO on down! NOT process <em>compliance</em> or some crap like that, but their actual demonstrable process performance measures tied to money as a function of whether it supports their corporate goals — which are laser-focused on customer experience. EMC is looking to implement all three CMMI constellations. For good measure, he spoke about the fact that they're using agile practices all over the place.</p> <p>Who's "pushing" them to do all this? NO ONE OTHER than themselves. Almost makes me want to work there. <em>Almost</em>.</p> <p>In all, really great keynotes. Each SEPG conference should be so lucky.</p> <p>Next up: <em><a href="http://www.sei.cmu.edu/publications/documents/08.reports/08tn003.html" target="_blank">CMMI or Agile: Why Not Embrace Both!</a> </em>Being led by <a href="http://www.sei.cmu.edu/publications/books/process/cmmi-process-int-prod-improve.html" target="_blank">Mike Konrad</a>. <a href="http://www.askthecmmiappraiser.com/" target="_blank">Jeff Dalton</a>, <a href="http://www.agilemanagement.net/" target="_blank">David</a> and I joined Mike on stage. We stood because there weren't enough seats for the audience and the union wouldn't allow us to bring any more seats into the room due to capacity concerns. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.agilecmmi.com/images/MoreLikeTheLeft.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://www.agilecmmi.com/uploaded_images/MoreLikeTheLeft-400-796206.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>(In fact, a guy stood outside the room to prevent people from coming in. One such person blocked out was <a href="http://alistair.cockburn.us/" target="_blank">Alistair Cockburn</a>, whom I went out to drag in despite the protests of the bouncer dude.) Mike reprised a presentation he'd done elsewhere summarizing the main points of our paper and adding some new material making a case for process discipline in a couple of engineering-related process areas of interest. The slide, here, is an idea David and I intend to "borrow" from, depicting, <em>manifesto</em> style, concepts we value from CMMI compared to other concepts possible from CMMI we value less.</p> <p>Last for me for the day was an interesting perspective on CMMI and Innovation. Presenters' positions are that CMM started as something that would help organizations take revolutionary steps in innovative improvements as well as evolutionary steps and that while the model <a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_zaYQ63HPGh8/ScmrowJN1RI/AAAAAAAAAHE/K2L0Fj_B5GQ/s1600-h/innovation-400%5B7%5D.jpg"><img style="border: 0px none ;" alt="innovation-400" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_zaYQ63HPGh8/ScmrpWB0SNI/AAAAAAAAAHI/8aPAArRkfXM/innovation-400_thumb%5B3%5D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" align="left" border="0" height="183" /></a>still can support this, use of the model has been far from it. In addition, they discussed innovation as a process and then how CMMI could be enhanced, supplemented, or even "constellationed" into being more proactively in support of innovation. The speakers were very passionate about innovation. Props for that. Need more of it. They also posited that "maturity levels" for organizations using such a model would be superfluous and that what would matter most to anyone pursuing innovation would be business results. While I wholeheartedly endorse the idea of innovation as a pursuit to which processes can be applied, I was left wondering why *must* it be a CMMI? Maybe I'll be able to tag-up with one of the presenters to ask before week's out. </p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/23556190-3025298858208386322?l=www.agilecmmi.com' alt='' /></div>Hillelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04049925009955687531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23556190.post-58596490003725482372009-03-23T23:57:00.001-04:002009-03-23T23:57:08.308-04:00Field notes from SEPG-NA 2009 - Monday<p>San Jose, CA.  I'm at (no surprise) <a title="SEI site link" href="http://www.sei.cmu.edu/" target="_blank">SEI's</a> annual big deal conference, <a title="SEPG-NA link" href="http://www.sei.cmu.edu/sepgna/2009/" target="_blank">SEPG-NA</a>.  As might be expected, attendance is way down due to the economy.  SEI had to scale back a lot of the more splashy touches -- no-frills tote bag, nixed VIP socials mixers bare bones staff.</p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_zaYQ63HPGh8/SchaC0H_NrI/AAAAAAAAAGk/yNCOKu61NO8/s1600-h/kanban_ladas%5B3%5D.jpg"><img style="border-top-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px" height="184" alt="kanban_ladas" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_zaYQ63HPGh8/SchaDwtzyYI/AAAAAAAAAGo/wgaM99FCL-s/kanban_ladas_thumb%5B1%5D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" align="right" border="0" /></a> I arrived in time to teach a CMMI-SVC Supplement course for the SEI on Sunday -- scheduled to coincide with SEPG for the convenience of travel -- that evening I shared conversation and a bottle of really nice California Merlot with <a href="http://alistair.cockburn.us/" target="_blank">Alistair Cockburn</a>, <a href="http://www.tangramhitech.com/technical.asp/" target="_blank">Tami Zemel</a> and <a href="http://www.sei.cmu.edu/staff/smm/" target="_blank">Steve Masters</a>.  Earlier in the day Alistair listened in on my class from the corridor and over cheese and fruit bluntly reported that the content made his ears bleed.  Unfortunately, he's right.  Despite the mostly very positive feedback, there's only so much charisma can do for certain SEI materials.</p> <p>Alistair challenged me to explain CMMI to him in 5 minutes or less or he'd fall asleep.  I believe I succeeded.  He <a href="http://twitter.com/TheOtherAlistai/status/1373858009" target="_blank">Tweeted</a> as much at least.  As it turns out, not to either of our surprise, whether using agile terms or traditional terms, if you're working to improve the experience and situation of "development", you have the same goals and face the same challenges.  With that settled we called it a night and met this morning over breakfast to joke about travel anecdotes and strategize our individual plans for the day.</p> <p><a title="pic of Fred" href="http://www.utexas.edu/opa/experts/profile.php?id=400" target="_blank"><img style="border-top-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px" height="129" alt="image" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_zaYQ63HPGh8/SchaESD666I/AAAAAAAAAGs/os1dwXwjwVU/image%5B4%5D.png?imgmax=800" width="104" align="left" border="0" /></a> With other obligations on my plate for this week, this morning I only sat in on half of a half-day tutorial this morning on the excellent topic of <em>The Role of Organizational Culture in Process Improvement</em>.  Rather than a bunch of finger-wagging (which, from other presenters, such a topic title might devolve into), anthropologists, <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/8/8b4/484" target="_blank">Palma Buttles</a> and <a href="http://www.utexas.edu/opa/experts/profile.php?id=400" target="_blank">Fred Valdez</a>, and process improvement uber-guru <a href="http://www.pep-inc.com/" target="_blank">Judah Mogilensky</a> gave a very well-informed, thoroughly enjoyable, interactive and insightful tutorial on several very specific attributes of culture that affect how to introduce, address and implement process improvement, and the challenges faced by consultants, appraisers and users alike due to culture.  Concepts on the perception of time, surface or hidden emotion/expression, stated vs. rewarded values, and so on.  During this session, <a href="http://www.djaandassociates.com/" target="_blank">David Anderson</a> arrived.  We commiserated over the registration statistics and what it may imply for other large-scale conferences like <a href="http://www.agile2009.com/" target="_blank">Agile2009</a>.</p> <p>To round-out the day's sessions I attended <a href="http://www.moduscooperandi.com/" target="_blank">Corey Ladas'</a> mini-tutorial, <em>Launching a Kanban System for Software Engineering</em>.  He put up a slide depicting a "waterfall" life cycle which included a "stabilization" phase-gate to which he said, <em>"I don't think I'm saying anything anyone doesn't already know will fail."</em>  Someone in the audience stopped him to ask (with <em>incredulous</em> tone in her voice), <em>"Are you trying to say that this approach doesn't work?"  <<</em><strong>Snicker.>></strong></p> <p>After the tutorial, I headed off to the exhibit area for the "grand opening" of the exhibit hall.  As part of the fanfare, a troupe was hired to march around the exhibit hall in oriental dragon costumes accompanied by drums and cymbals.  It was festive and lively.  Though it would have been more appropriate had they been asked to start things off, lead everyone into the hall, do a circuit around the hall, then be done.  Instead, they continued to perform for a lot longer than needed.  In addition to causing traffic problems (which wasn't really a huge issue), they made it hard to speak while nearby.  That was an oversight.  After a break, they returned to continue, only playing softer.  Still, their initial display was too long and they didn't have to come back.  It wasn't that it was bad, it was merely unnecessary.  As for the exhibit hall... so sad... so many fewer, and each booth featured fewer people.  The student posters, were a refreshing new feature this year.  I was impressed with their efforts, both in terms of research and commitment.  First person I ran into was from, of all places, <a href="http://www.umbc.edu/" target="_blank">UMBC</a>.  Yup, home turf.</p> <p>Afterwards, David Anderson and his gf joined several of us for a wind-down at the Marriott's concierge lounge.  Well, as I should expect, my increased visibility within SEI and within the CMMI-oriented market has also resulted in never having to sit alone if I didn't want to.  Even then, I didn't always succeed in getting long stretches of time on my own.</p> <div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/23556190-5859649000372548237?l=www.agilecmmi.com' alt='' /></div>Hillelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04049925009955687531noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23556190.post-90735276971590328832009-02-17T21:44:00.005-05:002009-02-17T22:12:19.957-05:00Maximizing Travel Productivity (place-holder)The instigation for this post comes from too many social media nodes that limit character length. So really, this post is a landing page directed from several other places. You might have reached here by other means, which is *great* and THANKS! The content is for everyone.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.agilecmmi.com/uploaded_images/suitcase-722899.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 116px; height: 117px;" src="http://www.agilecmmi.com/uploaded_images/suitcase-722898.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />In looking back on my recent work-related travels, and in speaking with friends and colleagues about their travels, I realized that I have been losing out on opportunities to be far more productive when I'm on the road.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;">Specifically, to take advantage of being in a new/different-than-normal locale and to schedule speaking opportunities and meetings that I ordinarily wouldn't be able to carry out simply for being in the wrong part of the world most of the time.<br /></div><br />I got a sense of that <a href="http://www.agilecmmi.com/2008/06/rarity-and-first-for-me.html">last June</a>, but it was thanks to the proactive efforts of a colleague, and, I failed to pick up the clue phone. Last month I took a stab at reversing that pattern and found it very easy to do and rewarding. Now, I'm looking ahead and hoping to pick-up more of the same along similar lines.<br /><br />So, with this in mind, I'm listing my upcoming farther-than-day-trip travel events and I invite readers to contact me if I'll be near enough to you such that we can arrange for me to drop in to talk all-things-CMMI-and-Agile. Whether it's a 'formal' speaking or teaching situation or just a meeting over coffee (or beer) (or a white-board) to chat about specific challenges.<br /><br />If I'm already out and about, it's great to be able to "get local". I really enjoy digging into everyday challenges with different crowds. That's what I'm using in this post as a measure of 'productivity'. Come to think of it, isn't this like release planning mixed with process improvement at the personal travel level? <i>Where'd *that* idea come from?!</i> ;-)<br /><br /><b>Upcoming Travel (and level of flexibility):</b><br />22-26 March: San Jose, CA, USA (firm)<br />27-30 April: London, England, UK (mostly firm)<br />07-13 June: Prague, Czech Republic (fluid)<br /><br />So if you are in or near any of these areas, and would like to get together (or have me drop in) let me know.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/23556190-9073527697159032883?l=www.agilecmmi.com' alt='' /></div>Hillelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04049925009955687531noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23556190.post-10985603293174817182009-02-02T17:59:00.006-05:002009-02-02T18:23:34.973-05:00Quick Update<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.agilecmmi.com/uploaded_images/WhyAgile-791843.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://www.agilecmmi.com/uploaded_images/WhyAgile-791840.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />A lot going on and expecting more time to write shortly.<br /><br />I feel like January was a month for a wormhole to have opened in my head and process stuff just poured into it from some source beyond the <span style="font-style:italic;">javascript:void(0)</span>. (A little bad programming humor.)<br /><br />Expect topics on:<br /><ul><li>SCAMPI in my PJs.</li><li>Prerequisite(s) for CMMI</li><li>Optimization<br /></li></ul><br /><br />Meanwhile, I've uploaded 3 presentations to <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/hi11e1">Slideshare</a>.<br /><br />Links on the sidebar.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/23556190-1098560329317481718?l=www.agilecmmi.com' alt='' /></div>Hillelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04049925009955687531noreply@blogger.com0