Kirk Botula, CEO, CMMI Institute

Tony Grout, Head of Agile Transformation, Skype

Every large organisation talks about wanting more agility and innovation. So why is it so hard to get innovation to market? Tony talks about how when some organisations brand alone is worth more than a trillion dollars it's easy to create an ecosystem that kills the agile mind set. He also talks about some ideas to drive around it and some on-going challenges.

Ovidiu Suta, QA & BID Manager & Ramona Muntean, ISDC SRL

ISDC is a medium size software development company with offices in 4 European countries that decided in 2010 to start a CMMI improvement program to complement their Agile development methodologies. This concluded successfully in November 2012 with a CMMI for Development Maturity Level 3 Appraisal.

Since then our main challenge was to get new business in the company and focus on our strengths (quality, predictability). In order to do that we had to position ourselves correctly within the market so as to be able to show our added value to the customers throughout the entire project lifecycle rather than just discussing budgets and rates.

In order to get more business, we needed to escape from the “Euro per hour” discussions and bids that focused mainly on price as differentiator, and move towards areas where the discussions could go more towards quality, functionality delivered, aftercare costs, measurements.

In other words we had to educate customers and prospects to look beyond the “effort” needed, as they rarely pay for effort, and to focus on paying for delivered functionality and quality (using measurements like defects per function point, estimation deviation, and test effectiveness).

We would like to share our experience in getting the theoretical practices of the model into the business world and showing how we have been able to increase our competitiveness by using a very well structured Measurements Program coupled with the Bid Management process.

In the end it is all about ensuring customer trust and afterwards satisfaction.

Stephen Woods, Head of Portfolio Office Surface Transport Projects & Programms & Neil Grover, Performance Improvement Manager, Transport for London

Transport for London (TfL) works to keep London moving and make transport accessible to all, it was created in 2000 and is the integrated body responsible for London's transport system. The main aim of TfL is to implement the Mayor's Transport Strategy for London. Services including London Buses, London Underground, Docklands Railway, London Overground, London River Services etc.

Transport for London TfL have adopted P3M3 the Portfolio, Program and Project Management Maturity Model as the best practice model against which capability improvement is to be measured and have initiated a TfL wide assessment program using this model and the associated appraisal method.

TfL is divided into a number of discrete business areas and directorates. The Surface Transport Projects and Programs Directorate manages the investment in major civil engineering, service and operations and technology projects and programs which currently consists of a portfolio of over 70 projects.

The vision of PPD is to deliver projects and programs consistently and efficiently for our customers; to provide career development opportunities for our people; and to be recognized as a national centre of excellence for project and programme management.

Neil and Stephen have both joint Surface Transport PPD in 2014 and this presentation explains how they implemented an improvement program to deliver this vision using CMMI-DEV, P3M3 and SCAMPI Appraisals. It outlines the unique challenges we faced, the lessons we learnt and will explain how they conducted combined P3M3 and CMMI Appraisals using the SCAMPI Method.

It will explain how they used their combined experience to overcome what is by far their greatest improvement challenge.

Graham Dick, Director, Lamri & Jeremy Nuttall, Atos UK Quality & Security Manager

Organisational Process Improvement is desperately unfashionable, it's much more fun to focus on a particular tool or methodology.  However the unfortunate truth is that it's only through an organisational process improvement focus that significant benefits can be delivered and sustained across the entire portfolio of work.

This talk describes how Atos have used an organisational focus to process improvement to achieve just this.  It addresses:

• Why Atos started
• Why Atos kept going
• What Atos has achieved
• What was the Atos approach

Pranabendu Bhattacharyya, Tata Consultancy Services Ltd

"Going by average yearly spend of $3.76 trillion (source: Gartner, March 2013) by IT customers worldwide it is highly imperative that risks attributed to uncertainty and non-predictability must be eliminated and the primary factor which determines a projects' success predictability is it’s estimation. Estimation is an integral part of “Project Planning” which is the core foundation of any IT project. TCS which is a CMMi “Level 5” (both “Development” and “Services” and re-appraised in 2013-2014) organization has been continuously implementing multiple CMMi KPAs to aid “Project Planning”. One of the key enabler for this is the “Digitized and Integrated Estimation Framework” based on core principles of CMMi KPAs, like - “Project Planning”  -  performing estimations for “Resource and Milestone” planning and establishing “Project Life Cycle Phases”, “Budget and Schedule”

“Measurement and Analysis” - quantifying “Size” for computing “Defect Density” and “Productivity”
“Configuration Management” - through estimation traceability and version management from bid to execution “Verification” - estimation governance and comprehensive reporting through digitized estimation tool “Organization Process Performance-OPP - capturing actual effort from Planning tool to benchmark Productivity “Continuous Improvement” - feedback mechanism, comparison with actual effort, capturing/sharing estimation best practices through digitized tool Over a period of time, TCS has successfully implemented this framework and is continuously rewarded with “Delivery Certainty” and “Customer Delight”.

The case study is of a large USA based financial organization where this framework was deployed on customer request which not only helped them with reduction in Cost/Function point(~30%) and Effort Slippage(164% to 32%), reuse of knowledge through centralized repository, benchmark analysis against industry but also attain CMMi Level 3.0 Maturity."

Nader Mehravari Research Scientist Software Engineering Institute. Co-authors: Gregory Crabb, United States Postal Services & Julia Allen, Software Engineering Institute, Pamela Curtis, Software Engineering Institute

The United States Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) has been collaborating with the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) to improve the security and operational capability of selected United States Postal Service (USPS) products and services. Developing and implementing measurable methodologies for improving the security and operational capability of national postal critical infrastructure directly contribute to protecting public and postal employees, assets, and revenues. Such methodologies also contribute to capability development and performance elevation of other modes of transport and to the protection of the global supply chain.

Outcomes of this collaboration demonstrate that the use of modern capability-focused maturity models and associated management frameworks enable a structured, repeatable, and integrated approach for owners, operators, and regulators of critical transportation infrastructure. This approach enables more effective planning, assessment, management, and sustainment of transportation products and services to ensure that they meet all required security, safety, and operational needs, particularly when faced with disruption and stress.

This case study describes how SCAMPI appraisal methodology has been applied along with capability-focused CERT® Resilience Management Model to meet USPIS project objectives, how project outcomes are contributing to improving the security and operational resilience capability of USPS products and services, and how similar use of techniques described here is applicable to other transportation critical infrastructure sectors. This includes those sectors responsible for the movement of people and goods, particularly when faced with disruption and stress to transportation services.

Peter Leeson. Director, Q:PIT Ltd

In the race to have more tools and processes, more standardization and theories, it is often forgotten that it is people who produce the quality which your clients expect. In this talk, some of the key aspects of making people more productive and creative will be covered - these are the fundamentals needed to improve your client satisfaction.

Alexandrina Lemos, & Pedro Castro Henriques, Consultant, Strongstep,

Currently there are several discussions related to the use of Agile frameworks together with the best practices of CMMI model.

Can you combine the agility of KANBAN and compliance with best practices CMMI?

This is the challenge we seek to answer. It will demonstrate how you can define a model that allows combining the agility of KANBAN following the good practices of CMMI.

Patrick Holden, Programme Director, SITA

Organizations choose Agile because they see clear benefits in terms of sustainability, efficiency, quality, cost and customer satisfaction. But many face the challenge of not being in the “Agile sweet-spot” – how can Agile (and the organization) be adapted to still deliver its key benefits when faced with the challenges of scale and distribution? This session revisits the agile manifesto and key agile practices to see how one organization has successfully retained the key benefits of Agile while delivering very large, complex solutions using internationally distributed teams.

SITA have faced the hard choices of how to realize the benefits of key agile practices and successfully demonstrated industry leading gains in quality, efficiency and sustainability. This has been achieved by defining a standard framework within which all the distributed teams work. A framework that supports agility, the experience and maturity of its suppliers and, at the same time, has allowed the organization to achieve its quality goals through successful appraisal at CMMI Maturity Level 3.

Sheeba Kizhakkayil,  Damaraju Pavankumar & Ged Roberts, Tata Consultancy Services

Understanding the influencers and drivers of customer satisfaction and related causes of dissatisfaction enables proactive planning to ensure high level of customer satisfaction and new business.  The earlier in the customer lifecycle we can address potential risks to dissatisfaction the more chance we have of making the necessary changes and changing our behaviour to exceed expectations

Traditional customer satisfaction models are based on operational and quality metrics.  However, these metrics are lag metrics.  At best they can be a month old and sometimes it takes a trend of these metrics to identify problems and dissatisfaction. Consequently it places the teams in a delayed position to react if things are off track.  This study utilizes the project meta data such as the project technology, type of contractual and commercial agreement etc to determine the likelihood of high or low customer satisfaction.  This meta data is known during the sales or solution identification period and thereby enables the teams to take the necessary proactive planning and control steps to mitigate any negative effective or enhance any positive effects even further.

For this study, variety of statistical techniques are utilised to analyze the characteristics of projects over a period of “x” years.  Projects were then correlated with the resulting customer satisfaction score.  The prognoses were repeated over smaller samples to refine the methods and the prediction was compared with the expected results.  The methods showed that there is a consistency and repeatability in the analysis. The resulting prediction enables the project and support teams to take further enhancing project management and control measures.

Thomas Cagley Vice President, Consulting Practices DCG

Has the adoption of Agile techniques magically erased risk from software projects? Simply put, no.

However, Agile is inherently less risky, assuming you actually implement and practice Agile techniques. Combining Agile and CMMI based risk management techniques increase the robustness of implementation without adding overhead and further dampens risk. 

Note, I did not say that any type of project is risk free. Assuming we keep an eye out for risks, if we monitor those that we find and transparently share what we learn inside and outside the project team we stand a good chance of minimizing the potential of a risk becoming an issue. A black swan will occasionally happen in an Agile project, but because we are always on alert we will recognize it quickly and decide what to do about it as a team.

Peter Leeson. Organization: Q:PIT Ltd

Fear is critical for change to be effective. When an organization is feeling comfortable, customers appear reasonably happy, money is coming in, it becomes very difficult for the organization to be motivated to actually try to change the way they are working and focus on an improvement programme.

This presentation looks at some of the common fears that should concern most companies and how they can be used as a power for good and, in particular, the manner in which one organization was motivated to make profound changes when everything appear to be going OK, creating an increase in revenue, predictability and employee satisfaction - because good enough is not good enough in today's world.

The presentation will compare and contrast two organizations with different needs and levels of fear and see why one succeeded and the other failed in their improvement programmes.

Clifford Shelley, Oxford Software Engineering

The Measurement and Analysis Process Area outlines a way of developing ways to quantify within software development organizations. Applied carefully it can transform decision making capability, delivering evidence and insights where previously opinion ruled.

This presentation explores how to interpret and get the most from this frequently misunderstood and undervalued PA. We discuss how to use it both as a powerful, but lightweight, operational tool, and as an essential part of the SPI toolkit.

Ovidiu Suta, QA & BID Manager & Ramona Muntean, ISDC SRL

Alex Stall, CMMI Institute

See how your organization can build its capability to compete and excel by building and sustaining  a “universe” of best practices that are scalable and repeatable.  This session walks you through real-world examples of how CMMI (across all of its applications--Acquisition, Development, Services and People) enables businesses to tailor an improvement model for themselves that is consistent with their business needs and objectives.

Dan Torrens, COO, CMMI Institute