Customer Reviews

Interpreting the CMMI (R): A Process Improvement Approach

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I am a university professor and am often asked to review books dealing with technical subjects. I enjoyed reading this book because the authors present their points cogently and offer step-by-step approaches toward resolving business issues. I also found the statistical process control, metrics, and higher maturity chapters to be interesting and entertaining. The authors take the reader through several different techniques that can be found in organizations, summarize each, and then demonstrate which methods they find to be the most often used, and most easily understood. While I am not a process improvement specialist, I feel that anyone who is assigned these duties could benefit from this book. This is not just another re-hash of the CMMI.

If you want to truly understand the CMMI, its benefits, and a frank discussion of the challenges you'll encounter when implementing it, this book is worth its weight in gold.

First, it distills all of the information you can freely download from SEI (see ASIN B0000Y4PCA) into a more manageable volume that is sequenced for understanding both the CMMI and how to implement it. While the SEI documentation is complete and comprehensive, it is also information overload.

Second, this book does not conflict with SEI's documentation. In addition to being consistent with it, it also provides assessment and implementation techniques that SEI developed and recommends, such as the Standard CMMI Appraisal Method for Process Improvement (SCAMPI).

Third, this book comes with a CD ROM with checklists and templates that will greatly aid in implementation.

The book is structured into three parts - (1) an introduction, which is fairly generic, (2) a detailed description of CMMI process areas for levels 2-5, and (3) an implementation approach that is complete and realistic. I like the fact that the challenges of implementing CMMI are covered, as well as a sensible discussion of whether the CMMI is right for your organization. This is a nice contrast with books that proclaim the CMMI to be absolutely necessary without regard to business and organizational realities.

Material in the 17 appendices add further value to this book. In addition to the checklists and templates, this collected information also discusses metrics and related topics that did not merit a chapter in the body of the book. If you are implementing the CMMI you'll find this book to be a perfect resource in the discovery and elaboration phases of the project, and an excellent guide during the implementation.

My organization has been involved in process improvement for several years. I found this book to be very interesting, as we have experienced many of the missteps mentioned. I found this book to be very helpful in mapping out strategies for establishing and tracking your organization's process improvement approach. I also appreciated the examples of process, procedures, policies, and plans; as well as the difference between them and the reasons why they are needed, as my organization had struggled with these documentation issues. The later chapters dealing with statistical control and higher maturity provided me with a clear understanding of these concepts and how to institute them in my organization. I would recommend this book to anyone in process improvement. It works not only for the novice, but also the experienced process improvement specialist.

I am the Project Manager of my company's Software Process Improvement team. My company is transitioning from CMM Level 3 to CMMI Maturity Level 4. I found this book to very helpful and practical. While the CMMI gives you little guidance, this book gives you a lot of direction and help in how to implement CMMI in your organization. The book begins by summarizing the CMMI. It then continues by giving direction and guidance about HOW to structure your process improvement efforts. It contains templates for plans, processes, procedures, policies, and charters. While the book presents examples, it does not pretend to do all the work for you.

Especially, I like the chapters about understanding the maturity levels (chapter 5 to 8). The most important concepts and points of the model are nicely emphasized. We have found great value in the chapters concerning Metrics, Statistical Process Control and the high-maturity stuff (Chapter 16 to 18). Furthermore, we are using several chapters in this book as read ahead material for our training classes. I would recommend this book to anyone at any stage of process improvement.

I am the SPI lead in a company that recently has achieved the CMMI Maturity Level 4 rating. This book has helped us a lot to obtain better understanding of the model requirements, make important decisions, plan and implement process improvement activities. Thanks to it we avoided many mistakes and saved a lot of time and effort. The CD which is enclosed with the book contains useful templates, checklists and sample documents many of which we adopted. The book was especially helpful in implementing Statistical Process Management concepts, specifically in developing process performance models. It is very easy to read and understand, very practical, and I recommend it to anyone involved in process improvement activities.

As the lead in implementing CMMI within my organization I was very disappointed in the contents of this book. It is simply a rehash of the information in the CMMI-SE/SW/IPPD/SS V1.1 that is available for FREE on the CMMI website. I found no wisdom from the authors on how to actually implement the processes and be successful with an assessment. The included CD simply includes the incomplete tables and checklists that are included as appendices (and make up about half of the book by the way). My recommendation is to save you money and read the CMMI documents.

This book might have been written in part out of dissatifaction with existing texts on CMMI. Those might have been perceived by some of their readers as lacking sufficient practical details about implementation.

As CMMI has gained more traction, and experience was developed in it by Kulpa and Johnson, they have shared this here. Some sections are a little elementary. Like the chapter on statistical process control. Its level of detail is suggested by how basic techniques like a histogram or scatterplot are explained. Statisticians may cringe at the simple tone. But the book is directed towards a broader audience of managers and engineers.