CMMI FAQs

What you’ll see:

• Disagreement among technical staff as to the “done-ness” of different components
• Product under test doesn’t meet requirements/design expectations
• Defects that could have been caught early escape into later life cycle phases due to that
• Increase in integration/test time.

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What you’ll see:

• Subsystems don’t operate together
• Increased integration/test time
• Building test harnesses/procedures/etc late in the project
• Integration environment is inadequate to support the integration activities.

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What you’ll see:

• Less than optimal solution is “settled on”
• Products that don’t meet technical performance requirements and/or user needs
• Increased testing/rework to resolve design/architecture issues
• Customer is surprised at the solution that resulted from their requirements

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Symptoms:-

• Sub-optimal Supplier selection– not based on the right criteria
• Integration of supplier products into product baseline is problematic
• Management and technical staff do not have insight into supplier’s activities
• Supplier issues are not covered in a timely manner
• Supplier products are accepted even when they don’t meet the product requirements

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What you’ll see:

• Measurements unknowingly used inappropriately/ out of context
• Management by perception/judgment vs. by fact
• Measurement presentations being used to confuse rather than enlighten
• Useless measures being collected

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What you’ll see:

• No assurance is available that quality standards are followed or achieved
• Poor quality work products being produced
• Ineffective processes that staff avoid using
• No accountability for not following process or meeting standards
• Significant project issues are not escalated for management attention.

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What you’ll see…

Poor estimates that lead to cost and schedule overruns. Unable to discover deviations from undocumented plans. Resources aren’t available / applied when needed. Unable to meet commitments.

Why Should You Care? Because…

Customers don’t trust suppliers who waste their resources — loss of future business. No lessons learned for future projects means making the same mistakes on multiple projects. Unhappy customers, employees, and stockholders means a short life for the business. If you fail to plan then you plan to fail!

There are many risks that are encountered. It will depend on organization’s size, culture and type of work. Some common risks encountered are:In general, most of the people, and even PMs feign ignorance, despite repeated and focused trainings. There is immense lack of attitude as well as knowledge in understanding the processes. People holding responsible positions have very little inclination towards unlearning and relearning the ways of implementing the processes. There is lack of Leadership at PM Level. Sometimes there is lack of accountability at PM Level. » Read more

What you’ll see

Crisis management. High rework levels throughout the project. Lots of time spent in meetings trying to “discover” project status rather than reporting on it. Data needed for management decisions is unavailable when needed. Actions that should have been taken early on aren’t discovered. until it’s too late

Why Should You Care? Because…

If you don’t know what’s going on, corrective action can’t be taken early when it’s least expensive. Lack of management insight/oversight makes project results highly unpredictable, even later in the project. If your confidence in the status you give to your customer is low, they probably perceive that!

Most of the companies, unless there are very specific reasons, are interested in listing their website on the SEI PARS Website ( sas.sei.cmu.edu/pars/pars.aspx). The PARS allows the confidential information of the appraisal like project name, etc., to remain confidential, is so desired. The Lead Appraiser has to identify this – as sensitive and then it is not displayed. It may happen sometimes that the Appraiser and the Appraisal Sponsor has not discussed this – and an omission may happen. » Read more