High Maturity Reference Books

I would like to read and understand more about High Maturity practices and I am also very keen to develop statistical skills so I will be able to construct a PPM. Can you please recommend some good reference books and/or links?

I would recommend the following books:

“Statistical Methods from the Viewpoint of Quality Control” by Walter A. Shewhart

“Understanding Variation: The Key to Managing Chaos” by Donald J. Wheeler

“Measuring the Software Process” by William A. Florac and Anita D. Carleton

“Building Continual Improvement” by Donald J. Wheeler and Sheila R. Poling

“Metrics and Models in Software Quality Engineering” by Stephen H. Kan

“Practical Software Measurement” by John McGarry, David Card, Cheryl Jones, Beth Layman, Elizabeth Clark, Joseph Dean, and Fred Hall

These are all excellent reference books to better your understanding of statistical and quantitative thinking.

A Question About Measures

Can someone please help me with the following questions:

1. Are there examples of typical or common measurements than an organization can use for every process area? (different examples appear in Generic Practice (GP) 2.8)
2. Where I can look up them?
3. Are there some measurement standards that show or define typical or common measurements? Which?
4. Do they apply to a specific Process Area (PA)? If so, which PA?

Granted there are some common measures such as effort and time spent on an activity. But the underlying principle of the CMMI and more importantly Measurement and Analysis (MA) is to define your goals and objectives and use them to determine your measurement needs. Then you will be able to easily specify those measures that have the most value to your organization and projects. You have to understand why you are collecting a specific piece of data and how you are going to use the information to make a decision, otherwise you will have difficulties and over time people will forget why you are collecting and using the data. They will not see the benefits of these measures. As I have posted to this blog before, start with the MA Process Area and use the practices to define your measures, how you will collect , analyze, report, and use them. MA is based on Practical Software Measurement (PSM). Read the PSM book and visit the PSM web site http://www.psmsc.com/ . The book is very easy to read and understand. It contains several case studies and example measures that will help you define your organization’s measures.

Process Measures

Can someone please suggest what meaures could be taken for the DAR process area for ML3.

Just like any product, project, or process measure, you should be following the Measurement and Analysis (MA) process of defining the information need and measurement specification so you can collect, analyze, and report on measurements that are relevant and have meaning for your organization. After following the MA process you may find that your resulting measurements are the same as other organizations have used, but NOW you know WHY you need to collect, analyze, and report these data. The justification for these data are now driven by your business and projects, NOT simply because you found some examples in a presentation.

If your organization does not have a history of using data to manage processes and/or projects, then you will need a strong position on why you have chosen the specific measures. Most likely you will receive “push back” from people and if the only justification for the measure is from an external presentation, you may find yourself in a losing situation.

For Decision Analysis and Resolution (DAR) process measures, you may want to look at how much effort is spent conducting a DAR, the number of alternative solutions examined, the number of people involved in the DAR, the effectiveness of the decision (was the right decision made after following the process). BUT you must follow the MA process to determine the RIGHT set of process measures for your organization.

The best place to go to for information about MA and process and product measures is the Practical Software & Systems Measurement web site at http://www.psmsc.com/

ML 2/ML 3 Measurement Objectives

For a Maturity Level 3 organization , is it acceptable if the organization sets its process performance objectives qualitatively? For example reduce testing cycle time , improve productivity, etc. and in OPF SG1, one of sub-practices states that process performance objectives may be expressed either quantitatively or qualitatively. Also would you please explain this clarification linking to ML2- MA - SP 1.1 - Establish measurement objective?

These are good questions, but the best way to receive a decent understanding of the concepts it to attend the SEI’s Introduction to the CMMI class. Intro to CMMI course description Brief answers, such as mine in this blog, will probably only raise more questions that would be better addressed in a classroom setting.

1. Only for High Maturity organizations (ML 4 and 5) is there an expectation for quantitatively setting process performance objectives. It is acceptable at ML 3 for qualitative objectives. But to fully understand this distinction you really require a good discussion on the expectations for each Maturity Level, which you would receive in the Intro to CMMI class.
   
2. A measurement objective is different from a process performance objective. The measurement objectives are the purposes for which measurement and analysis is performed and also specify what kinds of actions may be taken as a result of data analyses. In order to determine the measurement objectives, you first have to describe the information needs. An information need is an insight necessary to manage objectives, goals, issues, risks, and problems. The measurement objective is derived from the information need and it is a statement about what should be measured in order to satisfy the information need. For example, the project manager or other decision maker concerned with allocating budget and associated resources to a task may believe that productivity is related to the type of task being performed. Increasing productivity is then the measurement objective that addresses the defined information need. Determining productivity then requires that entities such as the product and the process be measured. There are many ways that productivity can be computed, but the measurement objective is unaffected by the different methods.

To fully understand these concepts you should take a class on Measurement and Analysis or Practical Software Measurement. Trying to explain these concepts in a paragraph or two does not do the subject justice.