How we do CMMI at Marks & Spencer

This presentation provides an insight into the Marks and Spencer CMMI journey. It describes the practical approach taken to the implementation of CMMI within Marks and Spencer. The target audience is companies who are about to embark on a similar journey or who have initiated a programme that has stalled or encountered problems. The presentation describes an approach that has proven successful within Marks and Spencer an environment where the main driver has been attainment of the benefits rather than attainment of a CMMI Level. The presenter will describe how this driver affected the approach taken compared to other companies where attainment of a level was the primary objective.

It covers the challenges faced along the way, starting with the justification of the CMMI programme and how these were overcome. The presentation concludes with a number of practical hints and tips on how to successfully implement CMMI, based on the presenters experience within Marks and Spencer and other companies.

 CMMI and ITIL

The CMMI has a significant history and associated strengths with assisting organisations in the development of processes for product and service development. The improved capability that organisations attain through using CMMI principles is however frequently limited to its engineering functions. The actual operational capability of an organisation utilising the products and services developed is not fully addressed. In many cases organisations are turning to the ITSM Code of Practice as a means of developing processes appropriate to managing the frontline delivery, maintenance and support of their services. However organisations are currently forced to implement these models as two complementary but independent approaches with no means of clearly integrating them.

This session proposes a means of integrating the two approaches by the creation of a new discipline as an extension to the CMMI. The structure of the CMMI provides a solid framework for effective institutionalisation of the guidelines for best practice within ITIL. The content of the ITSM Code of Practice is given more depth and significance by the development of process areas geared to developing capability in Service Operability and Availability. This coupled with a more rigorously structured and proven appraisal framework (SCAMPI) can give a more precise indication of the organisations actual ability than is presented by current ITIL assessment methods. It also raises the possibility of further developing the capability/maturity levels of service provision introduced for BS15000.

 How to establish improvement targets

We are now on the rising edge of the system complexity curve, and there is little chance of moderation in the foreseeable future. As systems grow more complex, the processes used to develop them will follow suit. The complexity of processes inevitably increases to keep pace with the number of individuals who are involved in performance. To have a strong competitive edge in such context, you might like to take advantage of opportunities and avoid simply reacting to change. Process improvement is one of the tools you could consider to help you to be successful, provided you focus on three key principles:

Executives have to construct the "speech" they need to make middle managers allies of the program. They have to carefully consider initial process-improvement goals and select achievable objectives that can immediately show a benefit to the organisation.

No step is more critical than closely coupling process-improvement activities with corporate or organisational goals. In the long run, if process improvement will not affect the bottom line, then neither practitioners nor management will see it as valuable. Efficiency and quality goals are often good candidates.

 Using requirements management as a springboard for success

'Business objective', 'Goal', 'Customer need', 'Contract', 'Regulation', 'Standard' - these are all requirements by another name. With the drive for improved IT Governance, clearly documenting all these types of requirements is essential for IT projects. Requirements Management concerns the gathering, articulation, organisation,tracing and visibility of requirements. Best practice in this area is shown by analyst studies to be a major factor in successful projects. In one study, over 50% of the successful projects named requirements management as a key factor.

Requirements Management is a Key Process Area in achieving CMMI Level 2, and Requirements Development is a Key Process Area of Level 3. Giving attention to these practices is essential when looking to improve systems and software development processes. In fact, requirements drive the entire development process.

Requirements-Driven Development and Requirements-Driven Testing are vital to architects, designers, developers and testers who all need visibility of requirements to give confidence in working together to meet requirements and verifying that they are met.

This presentation will expand on the areas above, illustrated with case studies, and conclude by looking at the next steps beyond Requirements Management to achieving higher levels of development process maturity.

 What governance is required to make improvement programme work?

There are patterns of organisational governance that are common with successful process improvement programmes. This presentation provides an overview of these patterns and leads the attendees through the practical implications and challenges that organisations typically face in setting up and maintaining the appropriate governance frameworks. In practical terms establishing and maintaining executive involvement, improvement programme management, the software engineering process group (membership, roles, responsibilities), incentivisation and communication.

 The pragmatic use of technology to achieve CMMI goals

Can technology really help you achieve your CMMI goals? What type of technology approach makes sense to support your CMMI initiatives? How do you judge the suitability of specific technologies to support your CMMI program? In this session, Corné Human will shed some light on the practical application of technology in support of your CMMI objectives. The session will focus on the areas of Requirements-, Change-, and Software Configuration Management - all vital ingredients to successful CMMI implementation.

 The CMMI's relevance to compliance and governance

The Sarbanes-Oxley legislation was introduced in 2002 in response to the Enron scandal. It seeks to regulate how companies prove their processes that have material impact upon their financial reporting. This session will provide a basic description of the documentation of processes and controls that are required to demonstrate compliance with the Act; an outline of the business end-to-end processes that are required; the skills and approach that is necessary; and the potential pitfalls and typical errors that can occur in the journey. This is all based upon first hand experience of assisting a major UK bank in its efforts to achieve compliance. The highs and the lows of this journey will be examined. In the second part of the session, we will examine how the principles of ITIL and CMMI can materially influence an organisation’s endeavour to achieve Sarbanes-Oxley compliance. The relevant components of these models will be highlighted along with how implementing these principles addresses the problems outlined earlier in the session.

 How companies sometimes misapply the CMMI and make improvement harder: CMMI traps to avoid

Many companies begin process improvement efforts, but significantly fewer achieve the real gains such a program can provide. This talk will explain what the pitfalls companies can fall into and how to avoid them. These pitfalls include:

1. Assuming assessments are externally imposed tests that can be "gamed" rather than a path to radical self-examination that depends on complete openness.
2. Failing to assign senior management a key role in process improvement.
3. Appointing a process improvement manager without real authority to implement post-assessment improvement activities.
4. Assuming that improved processes can be written by consultants (whereas only processes that grow out of internal dynamics have a chance at being implemented, and consultant-driven improvements are usually ignored).

 Experience of using CMMI in IT procurement and outsourcing / off-shoring

The UK software market has illustrated a clear trend towards off-shoring software engineering to far flung locations with the promise of access to highly skilled cheap labour and CMM Level 5 capability. The early adopters have gained their experience, but most of this experience is not in the public domain. This presentation will explore some of the current trends in the application of CMMI to procurement and review some of the results of a recent Lamri survey into off-shoring, which indicates a clear change in the UK software market and emphasizes a number of key capabilities to be successful in the new world. The presentation also covers a framework to help build some of the lessons learnt into your off-shoring / outsourcing programme.

 The role of measurement in process improvement

CMMI, ITIL and ‘Sarbanes-Oxley’ Act require business process improvement. For that purpose, they prescribe pervasive measurement and, frequently predictive management of business processes. That was very difficult to achieve in the recent past, but the new tools are rapidly making it possible. In this session, we review a successful implementation of predictive management of IT Service Delivery, governed by an Enterprise Service Level Agreement (SLA). This approach and tools may be applied to other business processes – with equal results.

 Was it worth it? The real benefits of attaining a maturity level

If Process Improvement is a journey then the experience of most organizations is that the path is a rocky one and the places encountered on the way are seldom the ones originally sought. A major contributing factor to this problem arises from the difficulties that organizations face when adapting the chosen process improvement model to their ‘real world’ situation. Models such as CMM® and CMM/I® are generic by design and extensive work is required to ensure that during implementation they contribute positively towards an organizations business goals. Immature organizations are most at risk of allowing the model, rather than their business needs; dictate the nature of their process improvement initiative. This presentation provides a summary of the approach utilised by GTECH in implementing process improvement across its global organization without losing focus of its business drivers. It provides a practical overview of how over a four year period an organization moved from CMM® Level 1 to Level 3 and is currently now transitioning to CMMI® Level 4. The presentation will provide a candid insight including mistakes made, lessons learned, and approaches and tools adopted to achieve success. It will also provide examples of significant and measurable business benefits that have accrued from adopting a documented and repeatable process improvement framework. It should be of particular interest to those operating in a multi-cultural global environment where small remotely distributed teams (i.e. less than 100 resources) deliver commercial solutions. For more information about GTECH visit http://www.gtech.com.