The range of consulting and development services gives an organization the flexibility to assume a greater or lesser role any aspect of the engagement. For both standard and high maturity the following guidance applies.
- General consulting involves providing guidance, interpretation and suggestions to an organization’s staff regarding what the model is saying and how it may apply.
- Detailed consulting involves providing suggestions as to a specific implementation in order to comply with the model.
- Process development involves actual development of process artifacts and their components.
Standard Maturity Process Components
The components addressed by standard maturity consulting and development are: policies, process steps and sub-steps and procedures; role and responsibility definition; identification of inputs, entry criteria, outputs and exit criteria; measures; quality assurance checklists from both a process governance perspective and a work product standards compliance perspective; training; tailoring; supporting information such as templates, samples, fill-in guides and examples; levels; categories; process areas; practices; etc.
High Maturity Process Components
In addition to standard maturity components, high maturity consulting adds a number of high maturity specific topics: process stability and capability; special and common causes of process variation; a variety of statistical and graphical techniques; hypothesis testing; statistical intervals; accuracy and precision; data types; measurement system errors; basic Six Sigma; the Goal, Question, Metric paradigm for mapping business objectives down to measures, Y -> X (Big Y to Vital X) mapping; process baselines and models; the four high maturity CMMI Process Areas; the proper use of statistics to make the case for high maturity.
Both detailed consulting and process development may necessitate assigning a different resource to perform an appraisal as there would be a high likelihood of an appraiser reviewing their own work if they provided both detailed consulting or process development and conducted the appraisal.
In any case above, training can be provided by the same resource. This is permissible as training conveys knowledge, without suggesting or mandating a specific implementation.
- PII Consulting (4-5 Days) (Really an extended type of training)
Experience has shown that PII development is a non-trivial exercise and most organizations benefit significantly from have some level of on-site support during the PII development phase. To that end, we recommend allocating a bounded number of days to provide PII development support. Current industry heuristics indicate that it takes approximately ½ to 1 day to develop the PIIs for one project in one Process Area.
- General Consulting/Coaching/Mentoring (TBD based on client expectations)
Supporting your Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) and other members of the organization, we provide general guidance, interpretation and suggestions in the vein of, you need more detail here, or you need a process to accomplish “X”, or what the model means when it says “X”, is . . ., without providing direction on the details of a specific implementation.
- Detailed Consulting (TBD based on client expectations)
Supporting your SMEs and other members of the organization, we provide detailed guidance on potential implementation strategies in the vein of recommendations to do things a particular way based on our understanding of your organization, its capabilities, preferences, etc.
- High Maturity Consulting (TBD based on client expectations)
At the general or detailed level, high maturity consulting caters to the needs of organizations that wish to progress to CMMI Maturity Level 4 and 5.
- Development Services (TBD based on client expectations)
When we assume the responsibility for development rather than consulting, we commit to deliver fully developed processes or process artifacts that an organization can use in its program for process improvement, project management or project development. Development services extend to all process components discussed above.
- Process Improvement Roadmap (TBD based on client expectations)
To create a detailed process improvement roadmap based on the results of the Baseline Appraisal. The roadmap serves as the project plan for the effort to achieve the targeted CMMI Maturity Level by the desired date. The deliverable for this service is detailed schedule based on the prioritized baseline appraisal findings, with estimates of effort required to enact the necessary process improvements.