Top
CMMI® SCAMPISM Distilled
Preface
Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) is a new way of approaching integrated, model-based process improvement for engineering development. 1 This book describes an appraisal method that is a part of the CMMI Product Suite. The method is called the Standard CMMI Appraisal Method for Process Improvement, or SCAMPI. (The team was really cookin' when it came up with this acronym!) To use SCAMPI to perform an appraisal on your organization is a significant effort that can require a major investment of resources. This book will help you to better understand what SCAMPI is, and how you can make your investment in process improvement pay off.
One primary reason for you to select a model (such as CMMI) as a tool to improve the quality of your organization's processes and products is that the model contains established "best practices," which can comprise a consistent long-term focus for process improvement planning. In addition to these best practices, the model provides a framework by which your processes may be improved in defined increments, so that their capability to produce planned results is increased. You can use a SCAMPI appraisal not only to identify process improvement opportunities, but also to measure your progress and establish a benchmark (against the CMMI model) that characterizes how far your organization is along the road to increased process capability. These results can be used to chart improvements over time, or to make comparisons among different parts of your organization or across different organizations. 2
Purpose
This book has a fourfold purpose. First, we wish to explore and clarify model-based process improvement and how it compares and relates to other current approaches to increasing your organization's process capability and performance. As you invest resources in process improvement, how much of that investment should be in CMMI and conducting SCAMPI appraisals? Second, we will present salient aspects of the new SCAMPI method. This information is essential to making a SCAMPI appraisal benefit your organization. Third, we will compare and contrast the "internal" use of SCAMPI as a process improvement tool to the "external" use of SCAMPI as a tool for evaluating potential suppliers, or monitoring existing suppliers. Finally, we wish to explore strategic decisions for using SCAMPI appraisals in different kinds of organizations.
Audience
The primary intended audience for this book is any member of an engineering development organization who has a role in promoting internal process improvement or in appraising the process capability of suppliers. 3 Whether you chose this role or someone chose it for you (such things happen, occasionally), you should be able use this book to understand and make good decisions about CMMI SCAMPI appraisals. Our audience includes executives, middle managers, team leaders, acquisition specialists, quality specialists, marketing personnel, process improvement champions, and the often overlooked and overworked process improvement practitioners.
Executives who sponsor a SCAMPI appraisal will find guidance on the key decisions that they will confront during the planning for and execution of an appraisal, and will gain a better understanding of the benefits that they can expect. Middle managers, and team leaders, as well as program or project managers will find information about their roles during the conduct of an appraisal. Their key role is to supply information to the appraisal team on the processes actually followed by the organization. Those with an acquirer role will learn about the value and limitations of using SCAMPI appraisal results in supplier selection and monitoring. Of course, quality specialists have a central role in any process improvement effort or any appraisal of such an effort, and they will learn again why their role is so important. Did we say marketing personnel? You bet! Because acquirers may want to know about the CMMI rating of a potential supplier, those in marketing will gain an understanding of what such ratings mean and the value for their customers in being an organization with established, capable processes.
Process improvement champions need to build and maintain support for ongoing improvement activities, and when the time comes for an appraisal, they will be getting questions from all sides:
-
How much did you say this is going to cost?
-
You need us to provide evidence of what?
-
Is this really going to help us?
-
Why do we need to change this procedure when it's worked for us up until now?
And so on, and so on.
Most of what we present in this book will help process improvement champions deal with such questions and the stressful environment in which they are asked (but they are on their own in finding a good therapist). Those who implement process improvement have many roles to play in a SCAMPI appraisal, including gathering the objective evidence that an appraisal team needs to do its work and being interviewed during the appraisal. We will provide sufficient information to perform such roles well.
Speaking of appraisal teams, both SCAMPI lead appraisers and SCAMPI appraisal team members are an important part of our intended audience. They have the task of appraising organizational compliance against the CMMI model and assuring that the appraisal method is properly followed. As team members, they may or may not be part of the organization that is undergoing the appraisal. An organization may want an SEI-qualified lead appraiser from outside the organization in order to increase the perception that the results are reliable and sufficiently objective. A division of a large corporation may wish to bring in some team members from other locations, divisions, or sectors to introduce multiple perspectives. Whatever its makeup, the appraisal team has a key role in promoting process improvement across the organization. The information in this book can serve as a useful supplement to the training that those on the appraisal team receive.
Often, we suppose, you may have picked up this book because you have just been told that you are about to be interviewed by an appraisal team as part of a SCAMPI appraisal, and you aren't really sure what it is about or how to prepare. Don't panic! Read on!
Organization
This book is divided into three major parts.
Part I, "Why SCAMPI Now?" provides a summary of the CMMI Product Suite today, including the project, models, appraisal methods, and training. Part I also sets the stage by reviewing process appraisal strategies in the context of a process improvement model, as well as related techniques, quality initiatives, international standards, and other approaches that may affect how you address process improvement in your organization. It explores the question of whether an appraisal you conduct using an integrated model (like CMMI) must mandate that there are integrated processes in the organization.
Part II, "SCAMPI Appraisals," describes SCAMPI appraisals in detail. First, distinctive new aspects of the SCAMPI method are presented as a way of orienting readers who may be familiar with prior appraisal techniques, which are described briefly. Then an overview of SCAMPI includes its basic features, its modes of use (process improvement, supplier selection, and process monitoring), the sources for objective evidence that the appraisal team reviews, and indicators that the CMMI model practices have been implemented in t
