CMM Implementation Guide: Choreographing Software Process Improvement [Paperback]

Kim Caputo (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0201379384 | ISBN-13: 978-0201379389 | Publication Date: April 24, 1998

The Software Engineering Institute's Capability Maturity Model (CMM) has been widely adopted by companies seeking enhanced quality and heightened productivity in software development. This unique book offers step-by-step instruction on how to put the CMM into practice, and on how to conduct software process improvement within your own organization. Drawing on her first-hand experience leading process improvement groups in a large corporation, the author provides sound advice on how to get started, points out the problems that are likely to be encountered, and offers workable solutions that have proven effective in CMM implementation.

Editorial Reviews

Review

As a member of the merged company's Software Engineering Process Group, Caputo's job was to bring these groups's disparate development practices into line with those prescribed by the SEI's Capability Maturity Model (CMM) (see The Capability Maturity Model: Guidelines for Improving the Software Process by the Software Engineering Institute, Addison-Wesley, 1994, ISBN 0-201-54664-7). Unsurprisingly, this turned out to be more difficult than anyone had expected. Caputo has therefore done our profession a service by writing CMM Implementation Guide, a book about how to get programmers--and the organizations they work in--to make the changes that the CMM requires.

The book is relatively light on its description of the CMM itself (although the diagrams on pages 36-40 are the clearest summary of the CMM I've ever encountered). Instead, Caputo's book has chapters on such things as how to lift the spirits of developers who are feeling frustrated or bewildered as their world changes, and how to adapt the general specifications of the CMM to particular company cultures. Throughout, Caputo uses choreography as a metaphor, drawing analogies between (for example) the different ways dancers learn a new step, and the different ways in which programmers can go about adopting a new design methodology...Read more from this review. --Gregory V. Wilson, Dr. Dobb's Journal -- Dr. Dobb's Journal

I found the Guide to be good reading, and expect that it will be very useful to SEPG members. The dance metaphor works nicely and provides a good, contrasting perspective from which to view these issues. Although there's lots about the CMM in the book, the issues are more related to introducing, sponsoring, and managing change for process improvement: the issues and the concepts you've presented are similar whether the change is based on the CMM or on something else. So, I think it will be useful to SEPG'ers who need to understand the issues, and that there are ways to tackle the issues. -- Mac Patrick President and Chief Consultant Process Advantage Technology andVisiting Scientist Software Engineering Institute Carnegie Mellon Univ.

People will see themselves in this book -- whether they admit it or not. Process improvement is a human issue where we all carry our backpack of barriers. This is a guidebook that provides roadmaps for practical change in the real world. -- George Yamamura The Boeing Company "SEI CMM Level 5: For the Right Reasons"

While the CMM focus on goals and generality makes it widely applicable, this leaves the application problems largely in the hands of the users. Kim Caputo's book provides a pragmatic guideline for how to address the CMM in an organizational context. The many examples and frequent war stories make for enjoyable reading and provide practical insight into the problems and challenges ahead. -- Watts S. Humphrey

From the Inside Flap

Industry and Community

The software industry has experienced tremendous and unprecedented growth over the past 40years, and our global and economic infrastructures are becoming more and more dependent on software. The software industry has been one of the fastest growing industries ever to exist. Along with it, a supporting industry has developed and grown into a strong international community: the community of SEPGs. What Is an SEPG?

A Software Engineering Process Group (SEPG) is a team of software professionals with responsibility for driving and facilitating software process improvement efforts within a software organization.

This book was written by an SEPG member for SEPG members, with the intention of capturing the knowledge, tools, and techniques that we have found to be critical to our work. In this book, I have captured the things I wish somebody had told me when I first started in the SEPG business. Goals of This Book

This book provides many thought-provoking ideas that are intended to help you be more effective in your software process improvement efforts. This book takes Humphrey's Managing the Software Process, Fowler and Rifkin's Software Engineering Process Group Guide, and Software Engineering Institute's Capability Maturity Model® to a higher level of abstraction, a deeper level of understanding, and a broader level of application to build a foundation for a disciplined approach to software process improvement.

The goals of this book are as follows: To help SEPGs understand the image of successful improvement as represented by the guidelines in the Capability Maturity Model® for Software (CMM®) and explain concepts in insightful ways that will help you to make sense of what to do. To help SEPGs work as partners with their customers (the people in the software organizations: the managers and project teams). To help SEPGs understand how to drive and facilitate process improvement efforts to implement processes that their organizations are willing to accept and follow. To provide tools and techniques for SEPGs to use for driving and facilitating process improvements that lead to successful implementation efforts. To provide encouragement for starting and continuously optimizing software process improvement efforts.

Learning from Experience

At Unisys Corporation, when our first SEPG was formed there was not much guidance on how to do the work of an SEPG. There was a lot of information out there, but it took us two to three years to read it and translate it to our own situation. We had information about what to do, but it was difficult to derive the practical methods for how to make organization-wide software process improvements. We had to learn the hard way--from experience.

Who should read this book? If you are currently part of an SEPG you can benefit from these ideas, which encourage working toward continuous optimization. You can benefit from seeing the relationship between your experience and ours, recognizing a repeatable pattern, and focusing your improvement efforts to save time and effort. I expect this book to help existing SEPGs to be more effective and possibly more creative. If you are just starting an SEPG you probably don't have the luxury of a two- or three-year start-up phase. You can't afford to learn the hard way, but you can learn from the experience of others. You can benefit from our experience to save time and effort. By packaging this information and integrating it with practical experience, I expect this book to help new SEPGs to start their efforts and gain momentum. If your organization does not have an SEPG and has no plans to staff one but you are willing to champion improvement efforts, you might find these tools helpful. By starting a few small efforts and making progress, you will gain some short-term benefits, and you will begin to build an awareness of the focus that is involved in organization-wide software process improvement efforts. I expect this book to help process improvement champions to make the improvements that they can make on their own, but there may be global improvements that they cannot make on their own. If the champions want to convince senior management of the need for an SEPG and want to explain what the SEPG members would do for the organization, this book will be helpful. A Choreographic Perspective

As I considered the source of inspiration for my work in software process improvement, I found a most unlikely source in my early life experience with dance and choreography. The analogy comes alive in this book. Dance is like producing software. Dancers perform the steps of the dance; software programmers perform the steps of the software process. Learning a dance could involve things such as reading the notation and interpreting the steps, or it could involve watching someone who has performed the steps before, trying to do the steps, trying the steps with the music, and making changes when something isn't working. Improving a process involves similar activities. As professionals, programmers are gifted and talented individuals, brilliant in their own right, who can collaborate to give a performance that does not diminish any individual performance. At least, this is our hope; sometimes the chemistry is wonderful, and sometimes it isn't.

Choreography involves movement ofthe body, guiding one or more dancers through certain steps and through changing rhythms while maintaining balanceto create a peak performance for their audience. Software process improvement involves the movement of an organization, guiding one or more individuals through certain activities and through changing conditions while maintaining balance to create a peak performance for their customers.

In both cases there is a need to understand how to move people's energy to continuously strive for excellence. Just as art is not done simply for the sake of art itself, but for the sake of enlightenment, entertainment, and encouragement of the audience, so software process improvement is not done simply for the sake of software process improvement itself, but for the sake of the customers whose lives are becoming increasingly dependent on software. We must learn to improve and create excellence for their sake.

How to Use This Book

Because this book is based on both theoretical models and practical experience, as you use the models you will encounter many of the same experiences described here. Some things may not apply to you right now, but they may apply to you later. How to Use the Files on the CD-ROM

The CD-ROM contains templates, samples, and presentation materials that you can use to get started more quickly. However, please note that these materials are not intended for you to use directly but rather are intended for you to adapt to fit your organization. These tools will reduce your start-up time, but you must add your own finishing touches if you hope to succeed.

I am not suggesting that these materials are "silver bullets" or perfect templates. They fit the situation at the time they were used. If your situation is different, the materials won't fit as well. And your situation is sure to be different: a different day with different people (and remember that even the same people might be different on a differentday).

These materials might be helpful to people who find it easier to start with something and make changes rather than start with nothing and create their own materials from scratch. There is a phenomenon called IKIWISI, an acronymn for "I'll know it when I see it." We often can't describe what we want, but we will know what we want when we see it. We will also know what we don't want when we see it. Both reactions provide valuable information for producing successful results. These templates give you something to look at so that you can consider what you want and what you don't want. Then you can create exactly what you need. 0201379384P04062001

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional (April 24, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0201379384
• ISBN-13: 978-0201379389
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 7.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,311,912 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good SEI CMM-styled SEPG strategic and tactical guidance, August 1, 1998

By 

A Customer - See all my reviews

This review is from: CMM Implementation Guide: Choreographing Software Process Improvement (Paperback)

This book contains good strategic guidance for Software Engineering Institute (SEI) Capability Maturity Model (CMM)-styled Software Engineering Process Groups (SEPGs), on how to conduct the challenging and ever elusive endeavor of software process improvement (SPI). This book obviously draws from the author's extensive personal background and experience managing and performing SPI. Additionally, this book also contains tactical level guidance for pursuing the fulfillment of the SEI's CMM Level 2 Key Process Areas (KPAs), which is greatly in demand. The author consciously, deliberately, and most thoughtfully targeted the needs of the majority of organizations that undertake SEI CMM-styled SPI. I won't hesitate to recommend this book.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Somewhat fluffy book with interesting appendices, October 1, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: CMM Implementation Guide: Choreographing Software Process Improvement (Paperback)

I read this book wanting to learn more about how to implement CMM practices (at all levels) in an organization I was joining. I was disappointed. The book is divided into two parts - 8 chapters of descriptive text, and then a slew of appendices.

The descriptive text was very high-concept pop psychology type of stuff. I really did not need to be reminded that different people learn and adopt things at different rates. Anyone who has dealt with people and change should know this. In addition the constant analogy of a dancer learning new dance steps was at times lame and forced. Right up front, the author demolishes the analogy by stating that dancers get to practice their steps before performing, but software engineers start right out with the performance.

On the positive side, the appendices in the back contain useful worksheets, presentations, and ideas that can be used by practically any organization.

I wish the author had spend less time on the pop psychology aspects, and provided more examples and checklists. Then it would have been a 5 star book for sure.

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great CPI/CMM "Jumpstarter"!!!!!, August 5, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: CMM Implementation Guide: Choreographing Software Process Improvement (Paperback)

This book beats anything by others on adopting the CMM. Others take the "overkill" approach of orienting one with massive technically oriented information (which is sometimes akin to "sinking sampans with nukes versus 500 hundred pounders with fuse extenders"). This book is a breath of fresh air in getting introduced to how to implement/adopt technology such as the CMM. I say this book beats anything by others because there is no "techno-babble" to deal with. Ms. Caputo's use of dance choreography is pertinent as it emphasized to me that the typical technology adoption approach of Level 1 organizations of MBSAUYBII (management by stumbling around until you bump into it) is truly "chaotic". What we are really trying to achieve as we go from level to level is a fluid, organized approach that will truly support a smooth transition to a new corporate software engineering paradigm. An added bonus is the included CD which helps o! ne jumpstart the management briefings which are critical to initiating a continuous process improvement (CPI) program. The low price tag saved me thousands of dollars in establishing and initiating my CPI program.