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 are depending on is not delivering the quality you expect, and changes in department priorities are causing havoc with your plans for creating a new service.

On top of all this, your group has been signed up to be “certified at CMMI Level 3.” At best, this sounds like just another documentation exercise with little or no positive impact on your group.

When an improvement program is focused on a process framework such as ISO or CMMI, it is common for it to be treated as nonessential—a luxury that is affordable only when the business climate is rosy. Even when the business climate blossoms, it can be difficult to fit in additional activities.

An alternative approach is to focus on the organization’s business goals and problems and to tie improvement activities directly to current service-specific work. With this approach, improvement focuses on the real issues of the organization, and each change is driven by a specific need. The scope of the improvement program is not defined by an improvement framework, but rather by the organization’s goals and problems (Figure 1).

The goal-problem approach summarized in this article keeps the organization focused on compelling issues that people want to fix now. The improvement plan centers on the organization’s challenges, with small actions continuously taken to move the organization toward its goals. Improvement frameworks are adopted fully, but in small pieces, and each piece is fitted to a service-related problem or goal. Progress is measured by improved organizational results.

The steps below illustrate the goal-problem approach for planning an improvement program. In this tidbit I am going to just cover steps 2 and 7 with examples from a typical service organization. The remainder of the steps can be read in the book reference below.

Scope the Improvement

1. Establish plan ownership.
2. State the major goals and problems.
3. Group the problems related to each goal.
4. Ensure that the goals and problems are crystal clear and compelling.
5. Set goal priorities.
6. Derive metrics for the goals.

Develop an Action Plan

7. Enumerate actions using brainstorming and a process framework.
8. Organize the action plan based on the goals and problems.
9. Add placeholders for checking progress and taking corrective action.

Step 2. State the major goals and problems

The goals and issues your organization faces today can define the scope of the improvement program. Example goals (desired state) and related problems (current state) are shown in the first two columns in figure 2.

Some organizations have a need to become appraised at CMMI Level 3 sometime during their contract. If this is your situation, the magic is to realize that the practices of the CMMI (or the framework of your choice) can be immediately used to address many of the challenges you have now. That is, CMMI implementation and work are treated as related activities; work creates goals and challenges, and CMMI practices are fed in the order needed (and to the right level of depth) to address these issues. Implementing CMMI is not about creating paperwork; it is about smoothing out the bumps in your business.

If your organization is not using a published framework, then the practices in CMMI mentioned here can be treated as free optional advice.

Step 7. Enumerate actions using brainstorming and a process framework

The last two columns in figure 2 shows example improvement actions that can be used to address the problems. These actions are simple versions of the practices from CMMI. The last column is the reference to the full definition of the practice in the CMMI document**.

The Improvement Action column does not contain all the actions needed. Organizations are encouraged and expected to add their own expertise to build upon the core practices in the framework (such as ISO or CMMI).

 

Goal	Problem	Improvement Action	Framework Reference [see reference 2 below]
1. Reduce customer complaints, rework and errors by 20% for existing services	Proposal errors	Perform work product checks for errors	PQA 2.2 [See page 8] PR 2.3 [See page 6]
	Service delivery errors	Perform service delivery preparation, readiness check and implement a request tracking system	SDM 2.6 [See page 9]
		Perform service delivery maintenance and repair  (improvement) activities	SDM 2.5 [See page 9]
		Perform service delivery process checks	PQA 2.2 [See page 8]
	Poor handling of complaints from customers (losing complaints, not returning calls)	Establish and maintain an incident management system for processing and tracking incidents	IRP 2.1, 3.1 [See page 5]
		Identify, control, and address individual incidents	IRP 2.3 [See page 11]
	Billing errors	Perform work product checks for errors	PQA 2.2 [See page 8] PR 2.3 [See page 6]
2. Prepare to execute a new awarded contract	Lack of staffing for new contract	Look at previous work to see what effort was needed	SDM 2.4 [See page 9]
		Estimate effort and cost for current work	EST 2.3 [See page 4]
		Plan for resources to perform the work (e.g., people, materials, space)	PLAN 2.2, 3.4 [See page 6]
		Reconcile available and estimated resources	PLAN 2.6 [See page 6]
	Inadequate skills for new staff	Plan for knowledge and skills needed to perform the work	PLAN 2.2 [See page 6]
	No document management system for new customer records	Plan for the management of data (e.g., customer requests and records)	CM 2.2 [See page 3]
		Identify what documents and data need to be organized, versioned and backed up	CM 2.1 [See page 3]
		Setup a system (manual or computer) for managing documents and data	CM 2.2 [See page 3]
	Services scope not well defined	Establish and review scope of services with customer and obtain commitment	RDM [See page 8] SDM [See page 9]
	Potential problems with suppliers (unreliable and poor quality)	Assess and mitigate risks of suppliers (what could go wrong)	RSK [See page 8]
		Establish and track supplier agreements	SDM 2.2 [See page 9]
		Escalate supplier issues to senior management for resolution	SAM 2.1 [See page 9] MC 2.1, 2.2, 3,2 [See page 5] MPM 3.6 [See page 5]
	Inadequate physical space for new staff and computer equipment	Plan for resources to perform the work	PLAN 2.3, 2.4 [See page 6]
		Establish a work environment based on organization standards (or develop an organization standard)	PLAN 3.4 [See page 7]
	Unprepared for spikes in customer demand over the duration of the contract	Track actual performance (e.g., effort, deliverables, cost) and take corrective actions	MC 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, 3.2, 3.4 [See pages 5+6]
		Analyze our capacity and availability to ensure that demand can be met and resources are utilized	MC 2.4, 3.1 [See page 6]
	No backup plan to maintain the service in the event of staff and weather disruptions	Determine which services are essential and need continuity planning Establish continuity plans Pilot and evaluate backup system before it is needed	CONT [See page 3]
3. Move existing services to the cloud and provide customers with mobile phone/tablet access	No expertise in mobile platforms	Plan for knowledge and skills needed to perform the current work	PLAN 2.2 [See page 6]
		Systematically assess longer-term training needs and plan for longer-term skill improvement	OT [See page 6]
	No plan to manage the synchronization of customer cloud data and existing data	Elicit the requirements for cloud data synchronization Design system (or delegate) Verify and validate system	TS (Technical Solution) from the DEV model!
	Potential quality problems of the cloud software contractor	Assess and mitigate risks of suppliers (what could go wrong)	RSK [See page 8]
		Establish and track supplier agreements	SAM 2.1, 2.2, 2.3 [See page 9]
		Escalate issues to senior management for resolution	SAM 2.1 [See page 9] MC 2.1, 2.2, 3,2 [See page 5] MPM 3.6 [See page 5]

Figure 2 – An organization’s goals, problems, and improvement actions

 

[Note: CMMI for Services is targeted at organizations such as sales, medical records, finance, contracts, IT development, and support.]

 

References and Notes

 1. Making Process Improvement Work for Service Organizations, Neil Potter and Mary Sakry (https://www.processgroup.com/book)

 2. A full list of practices used in the right-hand column are defined at: TPG-cmmi2p0-SVC-condensed-practices-v1.pdf

 

Further complimentary resources are at:
https://processgroup.com/cmmi-svc-rsrcs

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