1. CMMI DEBATE GRUPO PRINCIPAL ( A 19 01 2010 )
JULIO GONZALEZ SANZ consultor independiente
I´m interested to know lessons learned from evaluated teams about
"what" and "how many" PPMs have been implemented and accepted by
the lead assessor to satisfy CMMI L4
Anunciado hace 28 días |
Comentarios (16)
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1-EDWARD WÉLLER
CMMI High Maturity Lead Appraiser and Software Project Management Consultant
Julio
There is no specified number of PPBs or PPMs to satisfy OPP/QPM other than
more than zero. The answer will depend on business needs and objectives, as
well as the length of time an organization has been at L4 (1-2 years vs 10-15
years).
The best way to determine the answer is to have a certified HM lead appraiser
conduct a gap analysis or if you feel it is needed, a SCAMPI B/C.
What works for one organization might be too many or too few for your
organization.
Regards
Ed
Anunciado hace 27 días |
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2-RAKEESH SINGH
CEO of Trendz Process Consulting Pvt Ltd & Social Activist
Dear Julio,
The Lead appraiser may not be guided by the number of PPM/PPB shown or
practiced by the project/organization. Hence the supportive process
performance model which are statistical and probabilistic models and are used
on software/systems projects in the appraised organization and could indicate
the interim progress towards achieving your project/business objective
indicating the trend towards stability of your processes/sub-processes chosen.
Alternatively certain sub-processes the appraised organization have data for at
the organization level can be optionally used on a project, and may be just good
to have, rather a direct contribution for high maturity journey for the project.
As suggested by Ed a next step could be to do a SCAMPI B.
Rgds,
RS
Anunciado hace 27 días |
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2. 3-JULIO GONZALEZ SANZ consultor independiente
Dears Edward and Rakesk
First of all many thanks for yours comments and advise. I´m reading literature
from SEI (SEPGs Conf., reports ... ) and from others sources ,CMMI Conf.,
Wksps.,
My feeling is that the organizations are in the appraiser´s hands and their
particular and subjective consideration if before of appraisal there is not
negotiated an agreement about the PPBs and PPMs necessaries and
sufficients for appraisser.
In other case the organizations are losts because of the wide possibilities to
define the quality and process performance objectives providing baselines and
models to quantitatively manage the organization´s projects and taking into
account the large availability of methods to build the PPMs .: not only statistical
and probabilistic models but Discrete Event Simulation, Optimizacion, Monte
Carlo Simulation, Markovian models, Neural Networks,....
So, appraisals results for N4 should satisfy in different degree to different
appraisers, in function of their personal vision, requirements and bussiness
understanding .
Best regards
Julio
Anunciado hace 21 días
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4-GRIGORI GUSEV
Business Analyst, Software Process Engineer
Dear Julio, As an example, my organization (Level 5 appraised) has 10 to 12
indicators in the PPB (depending on the project type), most of them are
measured and analyzed for closed projects/releases only, 2 of them are under
on-going monitoring.
Anunciado hace 21 días |
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5-JULIO GONZALEZ SANZ consultor independiente
Ver toda la actividad de JULIO »
Many thanks Grigory for your comment
Do you can show , as examples, some of the indicators forming part of the
PPB ?
Best regards
Julio
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Anunciado hace 20 días |
6-GRIGORI GUSEV
Business Analyst, Software Process Engineer
Julio, yes. I think the most important and informative indicators are development
efficiency (Man*Hrs/KSLOC), rework rate (%), defect density (Defects/KSLOC),
effort estimate precision (%), Schedule Performance Index (SPI, ongoing
monitoring).
Anunciado hace 20 días |
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7-JULIO GONZALEZ SANZ consultor independiente
Ver toda la actividad de JULIO »
Thanks Grigory
The most difficult, from my view, is to select variables , metrics and indicators,
betwween lots of them existing in the organizations,

3. A correct set of criteria and methods will be necessary in order to build
effective,correct and useful PPMs .
Let me to send you and to Ed and Rakesh A HAPPY 2010
Julio
Anunciado hace 19 días |
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8-RAVINDRANATH KAUKUNTLA
Associate General Manager, Quality at Hexaware Technologies
I do agree with Julio. The success of PPM depends on identifying the right
subprocess for a primary process. I had started a discussion on this aspect, and
i find the discussions going beyond this but not one explaining or providing an
example of how to identify a primary process and its subprocessess. It is very
clear that every HMLA has their own opinion on this, but not a standard or
approach. Neither did SEI made it clear how this can be identified. It all is left for
the discretion of HMLA visiting the organization and then telling if the mapping
is right or worng. Why not we have soem mechanisma as in manufacturing
industry, that this is the pocess for identifying a primary process and sub
processes that enalble success or failure of he primary processess. I have
attend quite a few of training programs to understnad this but it is in theory but
no where is it giviing a clear concept understanding on how this can be arrived
at. I would really appreciate if someone can clearly indicate this.
Anunciado hace 8 días |
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9-EDWARD WÉLLER
CMMI HIGH Maturity Lead Appraiser and Software Project Management Consultant
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No, it is not at the discretion of the LA. You are overlooking the responsibility of
the organization to understand their business needs, relate them to software
engineering process, and identify their subprocesses that can be controlled,
then used as inputs to PPMs. Perhaps this is the identifying characteristic of a
High Maturity organization - they understand software engineering well enough
to do this?
The SEI does provide a lengthy course on Understanding High Maturity.
Anunciado hace 8 días |
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10-RAVINDRANATH KAUKUNTLA
Associate General Manager, Quality at Hexaware Technologies
But Edward, who will educate the senior manangement on what PPMs are
required as per the business needs. I am sure there are quite a few of them
who can interpret these and tell the management that these are the PPMs
required for the business requirement irrespective of the number. Can
something be done wither by SEI on this on the experienced people like you
who have done lot of HM assessments. I am not asking for a PRESCRIPTION
as given by a doctor but a guideline sort of thing for people who guide the
organizations on required PPMs for improving their business.....
Anunciado hace 8 días |
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11 EDWARD WÉLLER CMMI High Maturity Lead Appraiser and Software Project Management Consultant
Ravindranath,
If your senior management is trying to educate your process personnel and

4. development staff on PPMs, it is the wrong approach. You need to find qualified
staff (think Six Sigma Black Belts with extensive experience in software
development) - and then Senior Management has to tell the org to do what the
staff says to do (even if they do not understand - which is a rather large hurdle
to overcome!)
And it is not possible to provide this guidance in a discussion group. When I
have done this in the past it is thru onsite workshops spanning days over a
period of months.
Anunciado hace 8 días |
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12 PRABHAKAR KULKARNI
Experienced Quality Professional
Ed,
I think PPM's have been generally misunderstood... Why can't it be checked,
whether the person has prior mathematical modeling experience.. that would be
good.. I believe.. b'coz i find that any tom, dick and harry develop models,
without sound mathematical proof of the same and claim that they have charted
a model and gives effective results!!!!!!!!!
Regards,
Prabhakar
Anunciado hace 7 días |
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13 EDWARD WÉLLER CMMI High Maturity Lead Appraiser and Software Project Management Consultant
Prabhakar
In which case the appraisal team should detect the lack of foundation, find that
OPP has not been satisfied, and rate at no better than Level 3
if such an appraisal were audited, the SEI quality audit would discover the
problem.
Anunciado hace 7 días |
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14 BOB STODDARD
Sr Mbr of Tech Staff at Carnegie Mellon University (SEI) and Computer Software Consultant
Just read this thread and thought I would try to help with handy references:
SEI Webinar on tutorial for building PPMs
SEI Webinar on developing business goals leading subsequently to the aligned
actions for QPM and OPP
Anunciado hace 6 días |
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15 PRABHAKAR KULKARNI
Experienced Quality Professional
Thank you Bob for your information....
Anunciado hace 6 días |

5. 16 JULIO GONZALEZ SANZ
Hi
I think that the lessons learned about some interpretation´s criteria on PPMs,
not consolidated enough for newcomers or potentials implementors of L4, but
also between some of current implementors and , at least, some LA-HM..
I say that after to have a few .professional discussions with some of them
I had detected essential doubts, divergent positions and disperse approaches at
taking decissions time on selection of how many PPMs to build and to
implement in the organization, taking into account that frequently we can to
identify several key sub-processes and identify also controllable factors tied to
them in order to support during PPMs building.
From my view, and the others collegues also, should be not necessary to find
for SSBB or otherd specialists on PPMs building, as sugested by Ed.
The matter today is not discussing if to build PPMs is more or less
difficult.Generally , in high-tech companies there are many engineers
,mathematicians and others professionals working frecuently developping and
implementing complex, or very complex models based on sophisticated models
and their associated algorithms
In the BOK for BBSS Certification the level required for the statistics
and`probability areas is covered in any universitary engineering school program
distributions, regression (linear, no linear ,multivariate,
logistic,polynomial ),inference,DOE, RSM,including SPC and sometimes
introductories chapters on reliability.analysis.
I think that the main problem for the practitioners is not to know how to build
PPMs, but the uncertainty about the adequate approach and extent on the
PPMs´s application.
The observed problem is that there is a different perception of relatioship
between LA –HM and the organization is different when we are in L2/L3 vs
L4/L5 assessments environments .In the first case there is a balanced situation
in terms of common understanding and similar criteria about the aceptable
compliance of the goals and practices however this is not the case in HM
May be these situations happen because of LA-HM always propose not to do a
sufficient advise with aceptables fees but an SCAMPI B or lengtly workshops
with less aceptables prices ....
With my respects for all opinions and many thanks for them.
Julio
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Anunciado hace 3 días |