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Using the CMMI to Guide Our Business

Because we're a service organization -- specializing in the delivery of process improvement consulting, training, and appraisal services -- we're applying the SEI CMMI for Services (CMMI-SVC) to our own business.

We began our initiative in January 2009 when CMMI-SVC was still a draft. In just a few short months, the CMMI for Services has impacted everything from our selection of training space, our marketing efforts, and the development of this website (released in March 2009). We'll continue to embrace the model as it influences other aspects of our service delivery.

Our Online CMMI for Services Diary

The CMMI for Services Diary is our CEO's online account of our CMMI-SVC adoption efforts. We hope the diary will help visitors to:

• Better understand the CMMI for Services in a real-world, non-academic manner
• Witness one way of tackling a process improvement initiative
• Learn from our successes - and yes, failures - along the way.

Real-time, bite-sized commentary on twitter supplements the entries.

Comments on the diary may be posted to the blog itself, or “tweeted” to CmmiRox.

Excerpts from Our
CMMI for Services Diary

From Making Our Business Case for CMMI-SVC, January 16, 2009:

Here's the thing: For my company to plan and manage a big, comprehensive, formal, internal process improvement initiative would be ridiculous. We don't have the time. We don't have the money. (Check back with us in a few years regarding the money, although I'm guessing we still won't have the time.)

But we can take one small step at a time.

The beauty of using the CMMI-SVC (or any CMMI model) for legitimate process improvement is that you don’t have to implement the whole thing! You can select the areas of the model that you think will help you the most and simply address those. Then iterate as needed. We wish we could take credit for this approach, but it's been around for a while (although, I think, used by surprisingly few companies).

From An Agile Approach to Project Planning Saves the Month of February, February 5, 2009::

So, what do I do? Well, not to get all agile-technical on you again, but I've simply removed some of the functionality from my upcoming Feb 9-Mar 10 sprint. These features will simply remain in my product backlog, to be addressed in a future sprint, if and when I get around to it. My estimate has now gone down from 162 hours to 119 -- which just may be doable, even with my other commitments.

Is there anything in this "agile" move that runs counter to the CMMI, either in letter or in spirit? Simply put, no.

From Validation: Making Sure My Website Rocks, February 27, 2009:

The reality, however, is that I I don't make my living building websites. A full-scale CMMI-DEV approach to validation for an organization of my size, with my business objectives, for a potentially "one-off" website, might be excessive.

Instead, let's look at validation from the CMMI-SVC perspective. I am, after all, a service organization. Per my last Diary entry, my new website is simply one component within a larger "service system" that I'm developing. So, take a look at the PA appropriately named Service System Development (SSD). In it, you'll find the following: SP 3.4 Validate the service system to ensure that it is suitable for use in the intended delivery environment and meets stakeholder expectations.

This is exactly what I'm doing right now with my site, as it's being developed. Re-read those words after the comma, people, because they're pretty important. If I wait until the end to do all my validation, it'll be too late. Changes at that point would be cumbersome at best, and maybe even impossible. And in all likelihood I'd end up with a site that looks like this, or even more menacingly, this.

Experience statements apply to our CEO and SEI-Authorized CMMI Instructor Bill Smith
CMMI is a registered trademark of Carnegie Mellon University.

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