Want fast, easy CMMI ratings?  Even high maturity?

First, implement lean, Goldratt’s TOC, Deming’s ideas, Kanban, and other related concepts, then get busy with CMMI.

What you may not know is that lean is easier, faster, and generates better performance results sooner than CMMI.

Lean improves delivery issues sooner than process improvement alone.  Improved deliveries improves revenues, stabilizes cash flow, increases margin, makes customers happier and results in more sales.

In other words, lean means better flow and better flow means better business.

CMMI is great, but is often attempted as a first line of offense to issues it’s not meant to deal with.  CMMI is meant to improve flow, not define it, and, lean helps define flow.
(Yes, I know I said "theory of constraints" twice.)

Assuming there are unfulfilled orders in the sales pipeline, lack of revenue is due to lack of flow.  Typically, this is due more to what’s in the flow, how much is in it, and the clarity and cleanliness of how the operation’s flow is aligned.  Using CMMI to "fix" issues with flow is like using the Brownian motion of steeping tea to power a random-number generator.  It’s just too much too soon.  Process issues are themselves symptoms of flow issues.

Deal with the symptoms first.  Then, tackle the processes.

Two events to put on your radar:

Lean Software and Systems Conference: Boston, 13-18 May (Lean Camp & Lean Action Kitchen, Sunday, Conference Monday-Wednesday, and Tutorials Thursday & Friday).  I’m helping to organize and speaking at the conference, and running a tutorial on this topic on Thursday.

Kanban Change Agent Masterclass: Miami, 23-25 May.  I’ll be participating as a special guest to demonstrate how Kanban helps achieve CMMI ratings, including High Maturity.

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.

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.

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.

Recommend:

• Entinex CMMI Crash Course™ (Slides, Description)
• CMMI FAQ

Next week:

Your people with prior CMM/CMMI experience are probably worse than worthless, they’ll probably cause you to fail.

Despite half the attendance from 2008, the sessions were of very high 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.

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) unlike 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.

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, SEPG-Europe really made me appreciate that.

The only event on Monday was a workshop on CMMI for Services 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.)

Tuesday was the official tutorials day. My CMMI Crash Course 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.

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.

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.

Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were the main conference days. Each one filled with excellent content. (You can download highlights here.) A former client of mine, Kevin Williams started my Wednesday day off with superb content on his (former) 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.

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 Tim Kasse 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.

It was hard to tear myself away from the excellent networking 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 Michael West’s insightful work and thoughtful mini-tutorial (complete with hands-on exercises) on process design and communication.

The first keynote speakers started Thursday, but afterwards, the highlight of my Thursday sessions was John Hamilton’s 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 recent conference — where I also spoke.)) I believe it’s from John that I tweeted about where the real improvement begins.

Friday. Ah, Friday. The way Friday got started was surely a sign of good tidings. Tony Devlin’s keynote was simply inspiring. My tweets (also) 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.

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 tweet from that session set off a chain-reaction of re-tweets. Probably my longest ever.

Lastly, my mini-tutorial based on the SEI Technical Note 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 Crash Course, and other sessions from other events, despite all the presentations throughout this and other SEPG events, and for many, having sat through the Crash Course just days before . . . some misperceptions about CMMI and Agile (such as how certain practices “must” be done, or what constitutes “evidence”, or that process definition is process “restriction”) just are almost too hard to give up.

There is work ahead still.

I’m on it.

Munich.  A quick update.  I’m attending the SEPG-Europe conference here and things are going rather nicely.  Those of you who follow me on Twitter know that my plane left the

Seimens Building I visited

US quite later than planned.  I arrived to the hotel with just enough time to shower and dig out the clothes from my bag needed to change into before being picked up by my friend, colleague, and fellow certified high maturity lead appraiser Winfried.  Winfried works for Seimens AG, nearby, where he’d arranged for me (and others, on different days) to speak so the folks there who can’t attend the conference can benefit from the conference coming to town.  (Brilliant, actually.) 

So, that went well.  I delivered a rendition of my Keys to Making CMMI and Agile Compatible talk.  My first taste in a long time of a foreign audience of one specific nationality.  The last time I spoke to a foreign audience it was at a conference over 3.5 years ago where the session attendees were of mixed nationalities.  But it gave me a little sense of what it might be like for today’s instantiation of the Crash Course.  (Slides to follow.)

The (mostly) European audience seemed to be less accustomed to participation than I was expecting.  One person noted how it seemed audiences here are less accustomed to taking responsibility for their own learning than elsewhere.  Even with prodding and poking, it was tough to get folks to loosen-up.  (Later feedback informed me that despite my best efforts, as I progressed through the material, my speaking sped up to normal East Coast speed, not my de-tuned foreign-audience-speed speech.  I wish someone had said something… back to audience participation.)

Anyway, what was truly impressive to me was this… I asked who among them were using or looking to use CMMI because external market forces were imposing the need for a rating in order to compete.
ZERO hands went up!  I poked and prodded again and NOT ONE person said they needed CMMI because some work they want to win requires they use it.  So, as a (more or less) professional question-asker, I asked the converse of the question and found that EVERYONE was using or looking to use CMMI because of the improvement it could bring to them!  Including several who, during the initial ice-breaking, indicated they were fans of agile development.

I have never spoken before a CMMI-oriented audience where not a single person was there because they were wedged into using CMMI by some arbitrary externality.  Where everyone truly wanted to see how CMMI could help them improve.  And, not because someone was using a carrot and a stick with them.

I could do nothing more than applaud in their direction.

A "top ten" presenters list was published from the SEI’s SEPG North America conference.

Meanwhile, I don’t expect to see too many familiar faces next week in Munich.

I’ve received a number of inquiries about whether I’d be repeating my SEPG North America materials, and it turns out, I’ll be giving the same two presentations from the North American conference last month in Tampa, in June in Munich, at SEPG Europe:

The half-day Crash Course tutorial as well as the Agile CMMI Architecture presentation.

The feedback from the Architecture materials is that I’ve got a lot of good material, none of which should be taken out, but that 40 minutes is easily half of what I need to communicate it effectively.

In any case, anyone going to SEPG Europe? I hope to meet you there!

I’ll be delivering the CMMI Crash Course&trade: What the SEI Won’t Teach You at the SEPG-NA in Tampa this March.

It’s currently scheduled for Thursday the 20th at 1:30pm. Listed as a tutorial.

Hope to see you at SEPG regardless!

(Anyone looking to license the Crash Course so they can deliver it should consider attending so you see it being done. I’m also hoping to have it recorded.)

Delivered the 2007 version of the Crash Course.
I was surprised by the number of SEI folks who were there. Generally, feedback was positive, but anyone who was there is encouraged to provide any other feedback here as well. Good, bad, or otherwise. The slides are here.
(The slides above were updated and re-uploaded on 28 April 2008 subsequent to legal requirements of SEI.)

Please note, that the contact slide (at the very end) has been deleted to avoid being crawled and a source of SPAM. If you need contact information please go here.

I’ve been delivering this class I’ve been calling the CMMI Crash Course™ (What the SEI won’t teach you) for several years.

For reasons I’ve as yet not taken the time to figure out, I’d never advertised it, never had a web page on Entinex.com for it, and only really made it public at the NDIA CMMI conference last year.

Well, my Chief Executive Genie (responsible for marketing research and homeland operations… a.k.a. my wife Jeanne), pointed out that not hello.World’ing the course was a great disservice to the industry.

She pointed out that if part of the Entinex corporate mission (and my personal quest) was to better educate folks about CMMI, and that this education was necessary to help more organizations understand how to adopt CMMI, and that all this was just prerequisites for eliminating the gap (perceived or real) between CMMI and Agile… well… people should know about it!

Until now, other than presenting at the aforementioned conference, my only deliveries of the Crash Course™ have been to prospects and clients.

SO…

Now you know. I’ve got this Crash Course thing I do. It’s pretty decent. Teaches a whole bunch of stuff in a short time (4 hours). Conservatively, it could otherwise take over US$30k, about 4 weeks time over several years to gain what I’ve condensed into half a day of not-so-boring stuff.

I’ve had SEI folks sit in and they loved it. See… even though I say "What the SEI Won’t Teach You" it’s not that they don’t, really… it’s that they just do it in a very specific way that… well… doesn’t connect with lots of people on the things they care about. That’s just what happens when you’ve got a VERY large audience to satisfy. It’s also symptomatic of having to toe a very fine but deep line on what they can/can’t say.

Really… of course the SEI teaches this stuff… how else would I get it? (OK, unfair question… I’m a CMMI geek… I’d probably get it some way.)

Regardless… the AgileCMMI point to this is simply that training really does need to account for the needs of the participants, must be relevant to their projects and processes and must be timely so as to make a positive difference in decision-making. All-too-often I encounter perfunctory "process" training that has a worse effect than being bad. It foments cynicism and dissent for process improvement where the organization’s only goal is painfully clear: prove you had training or the appraisal won’t look good.

More people should know the content of the Crash Course™. It would make their CMMI (and probably Agile) lives easier.

If interested, I’ll send you last-year’s slides. (This year’s are way better.)
[Yes, that was a shameless plug.]
I hope to be presenting this year’s version at the NDIA conference again.
If you visit Entinex.com, you’ll also read about my Crash Course™ plans for 2008.