HUMOR USED TO OFFER "FAMILY COUNCELLING" TO HEAL AGILE-CMMI RIFT

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: November 16, 2006
CONTACT:Entinex

11/16/06, DENVER.   "Imagine CMMI as your Mother-in-Law", stated Hillel Glazer, Principal & CEO of Entinex, Inc., at the opening of his presentation My Agile Life with CMMI.  Speaking to a standing-room-only venue, also attended by notable Software Engineering Institute personalites, including Mary Beth Chrissis, one of the authors of the CMMI, and Bill Peterson, Director of the SEI's Software Engineering Process Management Program, Glazer drew many parallels between the challenges and resolutions shared by Agile and CMMI to getting along with one's in-laws.

The popularity of the "Lean, Six-Sigma, and Agile" track now in it's second year was evident at the 6th Annual NDIA CMMI Technology Conference and User Group, held each year here, in Denver, Colorado.  Most track sessions were both fully packed as well as attended by representatives of large defense companies and "integrators" such as Lockheed-Martin Corporation, Boeing Company, and others.  Spirited discussion and question-and-answer sessions following each of the presentations conveyed the traction this subject-matter is gaining.

Once limited in interest to smaller organizations who are drawn toward less pervasive processes, Lean, Six-Sigma, and Agile concepts are being adopted by more "traditional" companies both as a means of scaling their processes to the unique attributes of smaller projects as well as to address the challenges of absorbing acquired companies who are already using agile methods.

Through a series of participative audience interactions (and throwing candy), the presentation suggested that bringing Agile and CMMI together requires similar actions as required to bring peace between spouses and their in-laws, namely: establishing shared goals and mutual priorities; acknowledging respective perspectives and backgrounds and how these perspectives and backgrounds shape present attitudes; and learning to listen and speak in the language of the opposite party.

A practical application of this approach was displayed on screen and provided to the audience as take-away material which included a process architecture and a case study using Scrum.  Earlier in the week, Glazer presented a very popular half-day tutorial titled: CMMI Crash Course: What the SEI Won't Teach You.  One attendee wrote of the tutorial that it was "the best session I attended all week!" Many were drawn to the session out of curiousity created by the title.  The audience included a broad range of people experienced in CMMI: many came from organizations at high maturity levels who were looking for new ideas, while others were very new to CMMI and either needed to get going, or were evaluating CMMI for their respective organizations.  Of the 25 attendees, fully 17 requested the materials be sent to them via email rather than wait for the materials to be posted on the organizer's web site.

About Entinex, Inc.
Branded as the technology strategy company, Entinex, Inc. is the software process improvement expert for small-to-medium organizations.  Helping them get from estimates to actuals predictably, profitably, consistently.  And in doing that, Entinex clients are improving the consistency and predictability of delivering on their customers' expectations, on time and on budget.  Established in 2001, Entinex’s capabilities draw on over 18 years of experience in engineering, consulting, developing, deploying, and implementing technology.  Entinex is located outside of Baltimore with easy access throughout the region and has experience and served clients throughout the Baltimore-Washington region, out-of-state, and internationally.

CMMI is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office by Carnegie Mellon University.

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