Archive of Process Improvement Articles

The maturity model approach to describing organizations and processes comes and goes out of fashion.  It is a repeating framework de jour.  In the game of agile jargon whack-a-mole, the agile maturity model is poking its head up again.

Business rules are often hidden in processes as hidden decisions.  Once you discover that hidden decision, how do you communicate the impact of exposing and managing the decision?

A business process is not just a sequence of steps.  A business process is a series of decisions and actions.  Some decisions are obvious and can be actively managed.  Some decisions are hidden, and until you discover them, you can’t manage or improve them.  Here is a real-world example of the discovery of a hidden enterprise decision.

Product managers are often described as the hub or center of a software development organization. Saeed Khan takes umbrage with this under-appreciative image in an awesome article about information flow, product managers, and the SDLC.

Today we recorded an interview with James Taylor, co-author of Smart (Enough) Systems, How To Deliver Competitive Advantage by Automating Hidden Decisions. This book, written by James Taylor with Neil Raden comes out on Jun 29th (2007), and is available for pre-order from Amazon today. Our interview covers many of the topics in their book, with a focus on the ideas inside and the benefits you can get from applying them, in just under an hour.

See what CMMI levels and RMM levels other teams are using. Take a minute out of your day to tell us your CMMI level and RMM level. We all want to know, but we need your help – if you don’t answer, you won’t learn anything. Thanks for clicking through! And check back later to see the results as they come in.

In our introduction to mapping RMM levels to CMMI levels, we presented background info on CMMI, introduced the IBM article on RMM levels, and posted an initial mapping structure. In this article, we will look at the definition of RMM level 5. We also look at the mapping from RMM level 5 to various CMMI levels.

In our introduction to mapping RMM levels to CMMI levels, we presented background info on CMMI, introduced the IBM article on RMM levels, and posted an initial mapping structure. In this article, we will look at the definition of RMM level 4. W also look at the mapping from RMM level 4 to various CMMI levels.

Background
In our introduction to mapping RMM levels to CMMI levels, we presented background info on CMMI, introduced the IBM article on RMM levels, and posted an initial mapping structure. In this article, we will look at the definition of RMM level 3. We also question the language used and reinterpret some of what IBM suggests. [...]

In our introduction to mapping RMM levels to CMMI levels, we presented background info on CMMI, introduced the IBM article on RMM levels, and posted an initial mapping structure. In this article, we will look at the definition of RMM level 2. We also cover the tradeoffs and benefits of the practices it requires. Finally, we look at the mapping from RMM level 2 to various CMMI levels.