The Process Group

Your Success is Our Business

Compliance vs. Intent – Are You Getting the Most Out of What You Are Doing?

Introduction After observing the software development IT world since 1985, I have noticed that people fall into four general categories with respect to new improvement initiatives, such as Agile, PMI, CMMI, SAFe, Lean, Six Sigma, etc. Ignore — it’s just a fad Implement poorly on purpose to prove a point — “I’ll show them” Enthusiastically …continue reading >

Go on a Documentation Diet

Introduction Most documents, such as project plans, requirements, and designs, contain long narrative paragraphs that make them time-consuming to write, tedious to read, and hard to find essential information. Instead, consider banning paragraphs from your technical documents and use tables with single sentences. To illustrate the point, here are some narrative and non-narrative examples. Project …continue reading >

Complying with Standards Such as ISO9001, CMMI or AS9100

Introduction Many software, hardware, and systems development companies have customers that expect them to be certified or appraised to standards such as ISO9001, CMMI, Automotive Spice, PMBOK and AS9100. There are several common reactions to this request: Use the standard as an opportunity to improve performance. Identify the smallest possible application of the standard so …continue reading >

Improving Capability and Performance With CMMI V2.0 — What Has Changed?

Introduction (Updated 11/4/19) In March 2018, a new version of the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) and appraisal method were released. This article summarizes the changes and upcoming milestones. The overall focus in V2.0 has been to drive home the point that the model is about improving organizational capability to improve performance for any type …continue reading >

Why Do People Use CMMI and What Do They Get From It?

Introduction CMMI (Capability Maturity Model Integration) has been around for 32+ years and is a proven collection of engineering, management, service and improvement practices. The two primary models that organizations use are: Development (CMMI-DEV) Services (CMMI-SVC) The DEV model is used for development of systems, products, IT solutions and software. It has a worldwide adoption …continue reading >

What is the Difference When People Change?

Introduction Since 1989 Mary and I have been performing the role of change agent. This involves teaching or coaching new skills, such as estimation, risk management, defect identification, agile, CMMI practices, or fixing organizational problems so that work can be done quicker with fewer problems. There is one common difference between the teams and organizations …continue reading >

Using the Best of Scrum, SAFe and CMMI

Introduction The software, systems and IT development communities are constantly looking for approaches to organize and manage their work. Over the years there have been many solutions to choose from. These include the Project Management Body of Knowledge from the Project Management Institute (PMI), the Capability Maturity Model (CMMI), Integrated Product Development, Concurrent Engineering, and …continue reading >

We Are Agile and It’s Chaos — Now What?

Introduction Organizations move to Agile (Scrum) to get early customer feedback and deliver features incrementally. They also become Agile because it sounds more appealing than the alternative! Either way, from my recent informal audience poll of 450 people, two-thirds are not happy with their Agile implementation and experience chronic chaos or quality problems. What is going …continue reading >

Speed Up!

Introduction You have noticed that some project work seems to drag on forever. When things don’t go as quickly as you want, stop and identify some of the underlying causes. Consider the following categories and questions. Skills Are your team members skilled? For example, eliciting and writing software requirements can take ten times longer when …continue reading >

Management, Project Management, and Scrum Master Roles — Who Does What?

Introduction Wow! The lesson I have learned is not to read literature any more. A literature search on “Management, Project Management, and Scrum Master Roles” will make you dizzy, nauseous, and state every possible opinion as the correct one! The bottom line is that the word “manage” has been around for hundreds of years. When …continue reading >

Six Immediately Usable Requirements Tips

Introduction Across the software development industry, the goal that managers mostly care about is schedule. “Schedule is king” is the driving force. The goal is usually communicated as, “Deliver it by mm/dd/yyyy,” with only a confusing or vague definition of what “it” is (see diagram). The manager is (kind of) happy because a deadline has been established. The team …continue reading >

Making Money With Agile: Tranquil Lake or Shark-infested Ocean?

Introduction The world is going Agile. Sometimes with intent and caution, sometimes to address a previous challenge, sometimes “just because.” The benefit of Agile is that a project team is able to get early feedback about its work and incorporate changes every sprint. The risk is that the team uses this discover-as-we-go approach as the …continue reading >

Invest One Hour and Get Two Back — Use Practices That Are Out There!

Introduction Most project teams perform well day-to-day and survive, but with a few new practices life could be better. “Better” might mean less rework, less chaos, less overtime or better customer satisfaction. Newer practices already exist in published standards and frameworks. When people refer to published standards and frameworks they often refer to them as …continue reading >

Meeting Deadlines, Changing Resources, Changing Priorities — What do Great Managers and Teams Do?

Introduction Can you relate to either of these project schedule issues? a. A manager’s view: Deadlines and estimates are unreliable, and this impacts customer satisfaction and revenue. “We give our teams priorities every week; why don’t they deliver?” b. A team member’s view: We tell management how much time will be needed, but we are …continue reading >

What Does a Great Product Development Group Look Like?

Introduction YouTube videos of this article are at: https://youtu.be/rvnlV-DLnjc (part 1) & https://youtu.be/wB21f1da6PQ (part 2) Since 1989 we have been traveling the globe looking at great, and sometimes challenged, organizations. From an engineering and management perspective, here are some common “great” things we see. As you read them, contrast with your organization and determine where …continue reading >

Five Actions You Can Take Now as a Senior Manager to Change the Results of Your Organization

Introduction The great thing about being a manager is that if you change your direction by one degree, the positive impact on many people over time is dramatic. Your challenge is to find those practices and behaviors that improve your results and the results of the organization. 1. Commitment by involvement for developing achievable goals Do …continue reading >

Selecting an Appropriate Level of Product Requirements Definition — My Teams Say, “We Don’t Need Requirements, Just Your Money!”

Introduction For 20 million years (approximately), one of the age-old discussions in product, IT and software development is whether a team needs clear requirements to build a great product. Occasionally, engineering team members can persuade you (the leader) that requirements are no longer necessary in today’s world (aka “Agile,” “Lean,” “Concurrent,” “Value-driven,” “XYZ-style.”) However, let …continue reading >

My Organization Wants to be Agile! What is a Good Life Cycle and What Should We Consider?

Introduction The discussion over which development life cycle works best has gone on for thousands of years. All life cycles can be adjusted to give the results you want, or poorly implemented and generate inadequate results. The success of any life cycle or methodology comes down to the amount of effort invested in its refinement …continue reading >

Everyone Gives Me Estimates and Commitments, but Few are Reliable

Why Estimate? Deadlines drive most decisions in business, either because they drive revenue or they are one domino in a chain of events that drives revenue. Given that deadlines are important, adequate attention needs paying to estimation quality. Fundamental steps can be followed to make estimates reliable, whether teams use techniques such as guessing, Planning …continue reading >

I Just Want to Deliver My System On Time – I Don’t Know Why We are Always Late and I Can’t Pinpoint the Cause

I’m Drowning If you are a manager of an organization developing products or IT solutions, you might feel like you are drowning in a sea of missed deadlines and emergency meetings. How Did You Get to This Point? Here is an example of how managers often arrive at this situation. David is a senior manager …continue reading >

Improve Your Capability at Delivering Software and Systems – CMMI Quick Look

What is CMMI? CMMI is a collection of best practices used by software, hardware, IT development, and service organizations to improve their cost, schedule and quality results. It is organized into a roadmap that can be implemented incrementally over time. Useful links Summary of CMMI Formal and informal CMMI appraisals Changes in CMMI V3 Custom …continue reading >

When Scrum Uncovers Stinky Issue and Then Gets Blamed

Introduction Scrum is a simple and useful approach for managing software development projects. When performed correctly, it breaks work into manageable pieces and assesses technical risk. Some teams, however, run into trouble very quickly because Scrum is blamed when it uncovers stinky issues. In many cases Scrum is highlighting an existing problem, not causing it. …continue reading >

Kick-starting a Service Delivery Team – Pragmatically Using CMMI for Services

You are probably more than aware of the problems facing your service delivery organization. The list of problems usually starts with an overwhelming string of commitments and optimistic deadlines. Your staff members are working progressively longer hours, and new customers are anxiously waiting for your team to start working with them. Meanwhile, the supplier you …continue reading >

Using Medical Checklists to Simplify CMMI Process Development – Keeping it Very Simple

Processes that describe how work is done can easily become long and cumbersome, making them difficult to read and use. To keep processes simple to write, review and update, consider using a checklist. In a previous article (Tidbit #8), I described two kinds of checklists: “Read-Do” checklists that state what steps to perform given specific …continue reading >

Lessons learned When Appraising a Maturity Level 2 Services Organization

The CMMI services model has been out for a while. Here are some lessons learned when implementing and appraising CMMI-SVC Maturity Level 2: Strengths The model is conceptually appropriate for a services organization. When the PAs are performed the organization saves time and money by reducing mistakes and communication problems. Requirements Management (REQM) helps a services …continue reading >

Work Planning and Monitoring & Control for a Services Organization

The CMMI services model consists of Process Areas (PA) to help service organizations improve their performance and consistency. Much of the discussion in the CMMI community, and in available training, is focused on the new service-specific PAs rather than the core PAs pulled in from the development model (such as Requirements Management, Work Planning and …continue reading >

Where do you Spend Your Time – Fulfillment or Demand?

Over the years, numerous time management models have been developed to help categorize and improve time allocation. Usually these models group activities by separating urgent and important initiatives from less pressing obligations. An example of a time management model is provided in Figure 1. With this framework, all activities are categorized based on how important …continue reading >

Agile, Just Code and Ship, Merging with CMMI

The interest in Agile software development practices continues to grow as companies seek more efficient methods of developing software while meeting market demands for delivery. Scrum is a software development methodology based on Agile principles. Agile methodologies promote a project management process that encourages frequent inspection and adaptation, a leadership philosophy using teamwork, self-organization and …continue reading >

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