CMMI Case Study by Dan Fleck

Reference: A CMMI Case Study: Process Engineering vs. Culture and Leadership by Jeffrey L. Dutton,Jacobs Sverdrup

Overview
Jacobs Sverdups Advanced Systems

Group 400 employees Seven states Wide range of services and products to all 4 military branches and NASA Range of sizes (40 people, 4 years to 2 people, 12 months)

Beginnings
Chartered Software Engineering

Process Group (SEPG)

SEPG trained field office Process

Action Teams (PATs) Idea: Buy-in would be easier with PATs in the field offices

Reality
PAT teams had problems with buy-in,

non-participation -- no one likes process Attempts:

Positive feedback systems Newsletters Intense training

Tying perf appraisal to PAT participation

Plan 2: EPIC
SEPG reformed into Engineering

Process Improvement Center (EPIC)

Created 2 person core team and got

buy-in from field office leads (heads of field offices) Adopted life-cycle framework from ISO/IEC 12207

EPIC progress
Over two years defined six major work

products:

An integrated engineering handbook for project managers,

engineers, and management. An engineering performance improvement program plan for the EPIC. A process and product quality assurance plan for quality assurance. A measurement and analysis plan for the entire organization. A purchasing manual for contract managers and project managers. A knowledge management plan.

New Mechanisms Adopted

A life cycle that is both flexible and recursive, allowing

tailoring to support the needs of the project and the customer. A repeatable tailoring approach that accommodates services, systems, and hardware and software development for small to large project sizes. The use of principal managers and leaders in the organization to teach critical courses. The early development of an automated measurement database. The development (later than we wanted) of a distributed work environment to support process engineering and information sharing.

Results?
External audits noted they still had buy-in and

institutionalization lacking Realized they needed more external audits because organizational delusion did not let them see the problems. Refocused on knowledge management to fix these issues Added pilot projects, all levels of review (low level to senior management), quality reviews, etc

Does it ever end?

Pilot projects showed numerous

areas for improvements Eventually organizational culture of change emerged helped by a strong leadership culture willing to change and everyone with a feeling of People are our greatest asset and Growth is imperative

Challenges and Lessons Learned

Leaders that got into leadership by

providing their own stovepipe processes Leaders asked to abandon tried and true processes Needed people to trust EPIC to promote buy-in Needed to respond quickly and positively to criticism and challenges to the process

Leadership Didnt Know

The CMMI really does change the way every part of the

organization operates. The costs associated with adoption of the CMMI are real and cannot be avoided. Routine actions have to be conducted in accordance with the standard process, as well as corrective and near-crisis actions. A CMMI process improvement effort is not just another project, where the work products are the most important output. Some of the people you have worked with and trusted for years will resist the improvement effort for various well-intentioned reasons. Assessments cannot be used to provide feedback and evaluate the performance of individual elements of the organization. The CMMI process improvement effort must be carefully aligned with the goals of the organization to make it worthwhile. The management and leadership style that has served to bring leaders this far in the organization now must be negotiated with the unseen authors of a complex model they are just beginning to appreciate.

You should know

There will be more challenges then you

expect Some heros will leave the company It will cost more than you expect Leadership must believe in the process and be willing to weather the storm Leaders must also know and trust their people who are implementing the program

What do you get?

20% reduction in unit s/w costs - Lockheed Martin 15% decrease in defect find and fix cost - Lockheed

Martin Costs dropped 48% from a baseline prior to CMM as the achieved CMMI-3 - DB Systems GambH Estimation accuracy improved 72% on average in three technical areas - Siemens Percentage of milestones met improved from approximately 50 percent to approximately 85 percent following organization focus on CMMI General Motors Many many more at: http://www.sei.cmu.edu/cmmi/results/results-bycategory.html