Regardless of venue, country, time of year, or language, SEPG Europe continues to demonstrate itself as a valuable event for exchanging ideas and making  progress in the field of performance excellence.  It’s a clear indicator of the value of SEPG Europe that attendance at this year’s event both doubled from last year’s event and exceded all headcount-based logistics planned for the event.  This, despite the sputtering global economy, in particular Portugal’s current banking challenges.

Conference-related activities for SEPG Europe 2010 began with pre-conference activities and tutorials on Monday, official tutorials on Tuesday, then keynotes, mini-tutorials and sessions on Wednesday.  This entry comes on the morning of the last formal conference day, Thursday, after experiencing Wednesday’s keynotes, a full day of sessions and mini-tutorials, and the event’s gala dinner.

In particular, I want to focus on common threads heard throughout the week, what they mean to those of us in the field, and why it’s only at SEPG events where these ideas can reach critical mass.

The common threads

CMMI, appraisals, and the focus on “process” are, together, insufficient to meet the needs of today’s businesses and still relevant.

Insufficient because, alone, they can miss attributes important to business, and can inadvertently place too little emphasis on performance and results.  Still relevant because, without them there would be no robust, complete product set of performance improvement tools in the marketplace.

What these threads tie into is the experience that the market for performance excellence is ready for the “next evolution” of CMMI and SCAMPI and other process-oriented models and tools.  The market is ready for a way of looking at performance excellence that is appropriately applied in ultra-large systems as well as small and/or agile systems/organizations.   An approach that emphasises results rather than compliance, and an approach that looks at the entire business, including its market, culture, social economics, leadership, management, customers, relationships and other behavioral sciences.

By no means is this to imply that CMMI and SCAMPI are wrong.  They are widely acknowledged and credited as a necessary step in the evolutionary path of performance excellence thinking.  And, some flavor of CMMI and SCAMPI will most certainly persist as a necessary component of a broader focus on improvements.  All this is actually saying is that the market has absorbed the lessons of CMMI and SCAMPI and they’re ready for more.  They’re ready for what’s coming next, and they want to be part of shaping it.

A lot of the hallway conversations I’ve had have been about just this.  They’re about “what’s next?”   What’s after version 1.3?  It’s not clear what’s coming after v1.3, but what is clear is that whatever v.NEXT looks like, the ideas for what will be in it (by any name or version) will have roots at events like SEPG-Europe.

People here are clearly thinking ahead.  They’re thirsty for making progress.

What the common threads mean to those of us in the field

Those of us who provide consulting, instruction and appraisals in CMMI and SCAMPI wares, or who are internal to companies implementing improvements will be impacted by these threads in a number of ways.  Including, a potential wholesale change in what will be a “model” for improvement and its related appraisal approach.  Another impact would be the possibly broader reach of areas of improvement into aspects of business currently unfamiliar to organizations or professionsals in the field.

Furthermore, the business impact of the v.NEXT model could be a body of work that raises the stakes and the perview of where the model seeks to have an impact.  In other words, it could be a model that’s much more business-oriented and “systemic” than it currently and would require skills and aptitudes for implementation not demanded by the current frameworks.  It could become a model for which it’s not enough to be a model subject-matter expert, but also requires that users be equally versed in business as they are in performance improvement.

The core concepts in CMMI today are not likely to disappear, rather, they’re more likely to be absorbed into a more broadly-minded view of causing performance excellence.

Why SEPG events are where the critical mass is reached

Unlike any other type of events, at SEPG events there are presentations, discussions, new ideas and the direct interaction among users, practitioners, business leaders, government, academia, many industries, and the SEI.  Face-to-face, high-bandwidth communication and incidental interactions made possible by SEPG events are unlike any other events because SEPGs are focused exclusively on improvement.  It’s a conversation at a higher level.  The ideas for such a higher level of thinking in v.NEXT will be where the SEI gets its ideas.  These are the types of conversations taking place at SEPG Europe which is why I attend.  I attend so I can return to my office and my clients with new ideas and a glimpse of where things are going.

Until v.NEXT is reality, we can muse philosophically over what will be in it over glasses of the fine Porto port wines.

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.

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.

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).

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?

If I had to pick a few things that I could easily manage over time, which would they be?

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

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.

Business objectives (Within 6 months from 15 November 2009):

• Reduce body fat at least 40 lbs.
• Increase endurance/intensity at least 20%.
• Reduce waistline to no greater than US size 38
• Maintain or increase total muscle mass.
• Understand the influence/impact of processes, patterns and tools on health.
• Establish a manageable, defined sustainable process for my personal health including:
• how much I need to eat and of what
• how much I should exercise and what types of exercise
• Create a long-term strategy for well-being.

The information I need is:

• Nutrition data (Calories IN)
• What I eat
• Calories from what I eat
• Distribution of calories in terms of fat, carbs, protein and fiber.
• When I eat
• Exercise data (Calories OUT)
• Type of exercise
• When I exercise
• Intensity (specific to exercise)
• Calories burned
• How long I’ve exercised
• How I feel afterwards
• Weight data
• Weight
• Date and time of day
• Have I eaten before weighing?
• Have I exercised before weighing?
• Have I relieved b/m before weighing?
• Was I wearing clothes?
• Clothes size data
• Waist
• Chest
• Thighs
• Hips/Butt
• Neck

I plan to eat no more than 2400 calories/day, up to 6 "meals" or snacks per day.
I plan to exercise a minimum of 5 days/week
I plan to weigh myself once/week.
I plan to measure my clothes size measurements once/month.

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.

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.

I hope to reach my initial objectives in time to:
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.
2. Have something to report by the time the presentation materials are due.

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.

I have avoided this inevitable and dreaded project for years.

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.  Refreshing!  That’s the word I’d use to summarize what I’ve experienced here this week.  By far, compared to similar conferences in the US, the most noticeable difference between the attendees here and elsewhere is that among the attendees here, they share an earnest desire to use CMMI to improve!  To dig into the model, reach beyond the descriptions of "levels" and really look at what they need to do to improve.  Really, improve.  

Much of the "refreshment" came from the keynotes, actually.  Not that sessions I attended weren’t inconsistent with my observations, but the keynotes contained substance.

Everything from an exposé on policies that really zeroes-in on understanding their role in organizations, to ways in which traditional "need to know what this will cost and when it will be done" can be achieved on agile projects using, of all things, Earned Value and Function Points!

Among the keynotes (and others) were some very impressive explanations of exactly how process improvement (and CMMI, in particular) are necessary strategic assets that enable corporate goals.  How CMMI helps an organization satisfy and demonstrate it complies with external and internal standards.  How CMMI is helping an 1000+ person [yet still entrepreneurial] organization (that started as 13 people in 1999 and continues to grow @ a rate of 40 engineers/month worldwide) establish their organizational level capability to support frequent re-orgs (due to growth), international expansion, adapt new business goals, and introduce new regulatory and compliance standards.

There was even a session by a company who is forced, by contract, to reduce costs (or increase throughput) 10% per year or lose a multi-year multi-million USD contract.  And, of course, they were using CMMI (at ML5!) to do it and they explained how.

I’ve got blog materials for months!

But I’ll leave you with a few gems from Watts Humphrey himself:

• Requirements ALWAYS change.
• Time and Schedules are ALWAYS aggressive.
• Resources will ALWAYS be tight.

These are the realities of technology projects.  You need a process that can address these realities and adapt to change.  A process that expects perfect requirements, plenty of time, and more than enough resources is a process destined to fail.

This, from the man many blame for coming up with "the worst thing that has ever happened to software."

Is it not clear yet folks that it’s not CMMI that’s the problem, just CMMI in the wrong hands, that’s the problem?

SEPG-Europe helped validate for me I’m not nuts.  Here are a few hundred people who really want to make things better.  From my visit at Seimens and my meal with the local Scrum users group, to all the folks I met and heard at the conference.  What it spells is this:  those who take processes seriously are preparing to take business away from those who don’t and keep it for a long time.

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!