Succeeding in High Maturity Appraisals
Implementation Readiness for Appraisal:
As we progress in implementing CMMI High maturity practices its important to check the implementation at periodical intervals. The preparation towards Scampi A appraisal requires a clear roadmap with periodic appraisal/spot checks to understand the implementation of CMMI practices and where required correct the understanding. The coverage of these checks (or facilitated by consultants or review by HMLA) may start from up to L3 to L4 and then to L5 process areas. In addition all the projects shall have their own mapping of CMMI HM implementation to check how far they are in following the practices, alternatively detailed audit or periodical reviews in these projects may be a tool for implementation checks. The evolution may take anywhere from 20 months to 36 months or longer from a maturity level 3 organization to maturity level 5. For organizations going for reappraisal which is consistently following the CMMI practices can increase the internal appraisal and checks in the last one year.
Selection of HMLA:
The High Maturity Lead Appraiser selection is an important area for successful Appraisal. You will have advantage when, the Appraiser have prior experience in appraisal in the business to be appraised, the appraiser has performed prior ML5 Appraisal successfully, the appraiser has right number of clients with him to make availability for your appraisal. Considering there is definite chance of interpretation variance between appraisers and between consultants and within them, it always better to have HMLA identified earlier and engage him/her in early reviews to get their views. It has to be done at least 8 to 10 months before.
Planning SCAMPI A:
It’s important to define the Organizational unit with scope of CMMI Implementation. The business areas and locations from which delivery/services happen which are part of the Organization to be listed. The number of people working on delivery and support functions and their roles to be listed. Similarly applicable CMMI process areas and optional Process Areas inclusion and exclusion to be clearly stated. The Organization may identify the sampling factors along with the HMLA guidance early to understand how their appraisal would be and also to provide relevant information while making the appraisal plan document.
Typical sampling factors include, Location wise, Customer wise, Size, organizational Structure, Type of work difference in terms of delivery and QMS implementation. The HMLA may be able to find the sub groups with these factors or may be more relevant factors can be used in discussion with your Organization. Knowledge in SCAMPI Method Definition Document will help you to understand on how sampling in final appraisal will work.
Typically 5 to 6 month before itself these information can be generated.
ATM Selection:
The Appraisal Team Members in High maturity appraisals should have adequate experience in lifecycle which is appraised and understanding on process (Please refer SCAMPI MDD for requirements). In addition there shall not be any conflict of interest of their ATM role with the role performed in the Organizational unit. Similarly many reporting relationships within the ATM group is also to be avoided. Under unavoidable conditions, it has to be reported in appraisal plan and appropriate actions to be taken as per HMLA Guidelines. The ATMs should be trained in CMMI Introduction official training for 3 days and they have to be trained as Appraisal method (ATM training ) by the HMLA for 2 days (unless they are already trained). In addition people who will be appraising the high maturity process areas shall have adequate understanding on statistical and quantitative concepts.
Pre-Appraisal:
A Pre-Appraisal or SCAMPI B appraisal can be conducted atleast 4 to 5 months before to ensure the way high maturity practices have been implemented is appropriate , if not we have time to correct our understanding and adjust. The Pre-appraisal should have atleast 50 to 60% of projects to be taken in to final SCAMPI A appraisal.
Managed Discovery Appraisals:
Its common to see many a times managed discovery methods are used in SCAMPI Appraisals, which reduces the PIID development time, instead we have to only give a catalog and repository of artifacts as input to appraisal. Any additional documents will be sought based on interviews and document review.
SCAMPI A Appraisals:
To start with the Sponsor to be minimum available on Starting and final day of appraisal, in addition on finalizing the documents, etc. The Site coordinator role plays vital role in ensuring the timeline of interviews , facilities needed, etc are arranged. The interviews will be conducted as planned with different roles from projects and with functions. The documents are corroborated with oral affirmation to see the implementation. The draft findings are generated by the appraisal team and presented to the participants in appraisal, based on the feedback and further understanding the final findings are generated and reported. The Sponsor may choose to make the results public or not, so the announcement of your appraisal will be performed based on the consent of Sponsor.
The announced reports will be submitted to the CMMI Institute and based on their final check, they would publish the reports in PARS ( if opted by the Appraised Organization).
Combined Appraisals:
CMMI Dev and SVC ML5 or ML4 can be combined appraisals if the organization, wish to select that way based on their implementation. The benefit we would be getting is reduced training effort for appraisal team members and reduced interview timings for project members. The other factors like document study and rating of practices/goals/PA will remain same and may not lead to any less effort. However it helps when the projects have Services and development components together.
Extension Appraisals:
In SCAMPI A the recent addition is extension appraisals and these are very helpful to ensure the failed goals of a process areas and impacted process areas alone can be re-appraised if the HMLA feels its adequate. This eliminates the cost of the overall SCAMPI A conduction, when the first SCAMPI A has shown there is limited goals are impacted because of weakness and could be corrected in a given period of time, which is not more than few months ( Refer SCAMPI A v1.3 b MDD). However these appraisals can’t be like iterative appraisals forever and can only be done once.