The CMM gives a scale to indicate the software engineering capability in an organization, ranging from chaos at level 1 to fully defined, managed and optimized processes at level 5.
Level 1 is the default level you get, but sometimes you wonder whether an organization is worth this default …
In CIMM, the Capability Im-Maturity Model, you can get lower …
"Does CMMI benefit the customer? Several recent program failures from organizations claiming high maturity levels have caused some to doubt whether CMMI improves the chances of a successful project. Is CMMI flawed? Is the staged representation bad? Or is there a more fundamental explanation?"
Rick Hefner presented CMMI Horror Stories this year on the SEPG 2006 (annual conference on Software and Systems process) and was one of the presenters that got top ratings from attendees. The presentation is available as PDF.
Now that's timing! I started this week at my new job at Getronics PinkRoccade and will divide my time between doing regular projects and working on Software Engineering Process Improvement. We'll define the processes, set up measurement and determine how succesful we are and how we can become even better.
Just at the same time Marcus decided to post about a related subject.
He concluded that you can measure the success of business analysts on three basic areas:
Marcus references several of his earlier posts.
Hari Mailvaganam developed a Data Warehouse Project Management methodology that ties in with the Rational Unified Process (RUP). This is especially useful if the data warehousing project is part of a greater development effort which follows RUP.
In this post he lists the activities performed in the RUP phases.
Tired of waiting for your Adobe Acrobat Reader to load?
Frustrated when you click on a PDF link in a web browser, as it will hang the entire browser?
Peter's Adobe Reader Speed-Up points you to a free Adobe Reader Speed-Up utility
From the blog of Abrachan Pudussery, just for laugh.html
When you scan the blog, you might even find a nice photo of a Cowasaki.
Abrachan Pudussery, coach and trainer of project management professional certification, has several posts with information pertaining to PMP certification.His latest post, How PMBOK help in product development projects? , includes a table mapping some key aspect of product development projects and the linkage to the project management body of knowledge based on which the Project Management Professional examination is based.
I found two photographs …
Kano analysis is a quality measurement tool used to prioritize customer requirements based on their impact to customer satisfaction (definition from ISixSigma.com)
Scott Sehlhorst (from Tyner Blain) posted some items on Kano Analysis on his blog and wrote an introductory article in Pragmatic Marketing called Prioritizing Software Requirements with Kano Analysis.
Kano analysis allows us to prioritize requirements as a function of customer satisfaction.
Kano defines four categories into which each feature or requirement can be classified (an Apple® iPod® is used for examples in each of the following four requirement categories):
1.Surprise and delight. Capabilities that differentiate a product from its competition (e.g. the iPod nav-wheel).
2.More is better. Dimensions along a continuum with a clear direction of increasing utility (e.g. battery life or song capacity).
3.Must be. Functional barriers to entry—without these capabilities, customers will not use the product (e.g. UL approval).
4.Better not be. Represents things that dissatisfy customers (e.g. inability to increase song capacity via upgrades).
Center for Quality Management’s special issue on Kano Methods offers a very comprehensive set of articles on the Kano Model. Very academic.
An article on software design worth reading, I just ran into it: Quality with a name
James Shore states that great designs:
James Shore runs a blog on Successful Software.
He describes his experience with FedEx, a company that truly optimized at all levels, but fails when "things happen" … The lack of slack in the process does not give people an opportunity to stop, stretch, and look around, and correct the things that happened …
The story is titled Off-the-Rails.html
How I jump to my conclusions 