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As difficult as it is to buy the right software, you’d think they’d call it hardware. You need to be an expert in how to buy software. You need to know how to write a software specification. For every business there are many problems or needs that can be addressed. Technology will only be able to solve certain problems. For every one of those there are many technologies that will work. For every technology there are many more products or solutions of that technology. And, for every product or solution there are that many more vendors. How do you know if the vendor you picked is even going to have a product, a technology or a solution that can solve your problem and that it's the right problem to solve with technology? First you need to figure out which business problems need to be solved. Then you need to narrow down which of those business problems can be solved with technology. After that you need to determine which technologies are the right ones to apply to solve those problems. Only then can you identify the technology product or solution to address those needs. Don't even think about talking to a developer or vendor until you've done these steps. CMMI can be applied to small companies and in agile development environments and methods.You can achieve a CMMI level rating even though you use XP (Extreme Programming) or another Agile Development approach or method.Looking for help implementing CMMI? Need someone who will understand that 'your're different?' Looking for discipline in a lightweight environment? Entinex understands and can help you achieve your process objectives.Software development isn't manufacturing. So why do people keep trying to use manufacturing methods on software? Manufacturing QA doesn't work in software which is why so much software QA is so painful. Entinex has the solution. Don't let obsolete thinking about software processes intimidate you out of pursuing a CMMI level rating. Old-style thinking about software processes have not kept up with the times, but Entinex has. Entinex understands that you're in business not for the process but to make money selling software products, solutions, and services. Let Entinex help you achieve your process goals without breaking your bank or rhythm.
You don't buy a house or a car without knowing what you want first. Don't buy technology that way either. There are many good reasons to buy technology. Make sure you address those reasons when you do. For every business there are many problems or needs that can be addressed. Technology will only be able to solve certain problems. For every one of those there are many technologies that will work. For every technology there are many more products or solutions of that technology. And, for every product or solution there are that many more vendors. How do you know if the vendor you picked is even going to have a product, a technology or a solution that can solve your problem and that it's the right problem to solve with technology? First you need to figure out which business problems need to be solved. Then you need to narrow down which of those business problems can be solved with technology. After that you need to determine which technologies are the right ones to apply to solve those problems. Only then can you identify the technology product or solution to address those needs. Don't even think about talking to a developer or vendor until you've done these steps.

TALKS

 Did you know that your technology project has an 80% chance of failing? Do you know what to do to improve those odds? Do you know what to ask your software developer or vendor to make sure they know what to do so that the project you're paying them to do doesn't fail? Business executives and technology developers have a mismatch in two key areas: communication and priorities. Business people and technology developers have a basic communication problem in that the business folks can't speak about their business in technology terms, and the technical folks don't know enough about a particular business to convey technical concepts in a way that makes sense to the business people. Similarly, it's not on a business executive's priority list to get to know all about technology just to be able to define their needs in technical terms. And, it's not a developer's priority to learn the ins and outs of a business so that they can glean the answers they need from a business person to be able to deliver a product or solution. Entinex solves these mismatches by providing the needed translation between business and technology.
Less than 3 out of 10 software projects succeed to come in on time, come in on budget, do what the customer wants them to do. Why should your software project be among the (more than) 7 failed projects? Over 50% of all failed projects over-run their budgets by 189%, over-run their Schedules by 222%, deliver an average of 60% of what the customer wanted. In other words, customers paid twice as much, waited twice as long and got half of what they expected. The common theme is that NONE ever had a reliable estimate in the 1st place. The odds are against you. Most software developers and their clients have no means of accurately estimating the software project, predicting the outcome of projects or ensuring project success. When business executives are faced with a technology decision, where can they go? Will a vendor be objective? Will a colleague be qualified? Will their in-law understand the needs of their business? Entinex is the business executive's advocate. We do not take on technology development projects ourselves. Instead, we refer all actual development to qualified providers. This ensures that our recommendations are in our clients' best interests, not ours. Furthermore, Entinex receives no commissions, referral fees or kick-backs from any of these referrals. For these clients we provide the services of an Outsourced CIO. It's really quite simple: someone has to think strategically about technology for your business. If no one at your company does that for you, then call Entinex.
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Speaking engagements

Keys to Making Agile and CMMI Compatible.

Updated presentation as seen before, only now updated for the New York City chapter of APLN in January 2008.  (They've also got a video of the presentation.)

A Process Architecture for the Agile Implementation of CMMI.

Originally "field-tested" at the 5th Annual Software Process Symposium, in Edison, NJ, 30 October, 2007, this presentation addresses a long-standing issue in process improvement. 

» » The version presented a few weeks later, at NDIA is here.

Every organization implementing CMMI has struggled with the question: "How do we *do* CMMI?" More to the point, "how do we *do* CMMI so that we don't slow projects down and cost our company dearly in performance and not add ourselves to the long list of CMMI horror stories?"

Horror stories that play out over and over again with cliché predictability.  An internal protagonist stuck with the job of herding cats through an appraisal, an outside consultant type-cast as necessary evil, process that doesn't fit, costs that bleed companies to the brink of life, cynical project teams who've lost faith in the company and don't believe process stuff can work without going bad -- and they're the ones on whom the bad will be going, and apathetic leaders who don't understand what commitment to process improvement means, implies, or looks like.

A common root among horror stories can be traced to one cause: lack of process architecture at the onset.

This session will walk through a simple, scalable process architecture that relies on one thing: Successful companies must be doing *something* right; it's our job to figure out what that is and engineer a process solution to fit that.

While a complete and detailed process architecture for implementing CMMI with low process overhead and a focus on develoment productivity is provided, this presentation is not self-explanitory, and on the surface, without commentary, may not seem agile or lean at all.  As one person put it, "your sound track is what makes this presentation!".  For better or for worse, the limitations of projection presentations makes this statement very accurate.

(Download the complete abstract here.)

Keys to Making Agile and CMMI Compatible.

Updated presentation as immediately below, only now for the DC chapter of APLN in July 2007.

Keys to Making Agile and CMMI Compatible.

A discussion of how to make CMMI agile, and how to appraise agile methods to CMMI as presented at the Maryland chapter of APLN in May 2007.

My Agile Life with CMMI.

This is the same presentation as from NDIA, re-visited with minor edits, as presented at SEI's 2007 annual SEPG conference, then in Austin, TX.  Please see below for further elaboration.

My Agile Life with CMMI.

Presented at the NDIA 6th Annual CMMI Technology Conference in November 2006, this presentation explores what it would be like were agile development to be characterized as a "progressive" lifestyle and CMMI as a stereotypical charicature of an over-bearing mother-in-law.

What, with the constant pestering for improving yourself and providing better quality for her grandchildren.  Not to mention always on your back about how much you spend on wasteful endeavors.

Is she really a pest or does she just not understand you?

Doesn't she see that you are improving yourself?  That your quality of life does improve?  That your cost variances and efficiency of resources are tighter than any of your friends?  Or *her* friends' children for that matter?

So, you figure, if your CMMI mother-in-law is going to be looking over your shoulder all the time, you might as well show her how you are addressing improvements, quality, efficiency and productivity.  It just might not be exactly as she's used to seeing it.

"My Agile Life with CMMI" explains how Agile and CMMI can live together and gain the approval of your no-longer over-bearing mother-in-law.

Whether it's accurate or not, the perception by many in the development world is that proponents of CMMI follow a top-down, plan-driven approach to developing wares (soft or hard).  Similarly, there's a perception that Agile proponents have no plans or process discipline.  Before an understanding can be reached, we must address and correct for these perceptions.

(Download the complete abstract here.)

Panel Discussion at IRMA 2006 on Agile and "Disciplined", or "Plan-Driven" development.  Entinex slides from it are here, read about the event here.


Panel Discussion at SEPG 2006 on Agile and CMMI, read about it here.


Process Discipline in the Information Age: "Underlaying the Solution"..

This is another spin on the same theme as the two most recent presentations.  Presented at SEI's annual SEPG conference (2006) in Nashville, TN, this presentation is much shorter, and is far more limited in content and scope.  The focus of this version, however, is on "Time to Market vs. CMMI".  It, too, has the Agile CMMI Process Architecture™.

Process Discipline in the Information Age: Rethink the Quality Abstraction., (UPDATED)

As presented at the NDIA 5th Annual CMMI Technology Conference on 15 November 2005.  This updated version of the identically-named presentation of the previous year includes a process architecture, which Entinex has dubbed, the Agile CMMI Process Architecture™, and practical lists of how Scrum folds into CMMI.

Process Discipline in the Information Age: Rethink the Quality Abstraction.
presentation, and
paper.

A paper presented at the 15th International Conference of the Israel Society for Quality, in Jerusalem on 18 November 2004.  The paper was in the meeting proceedings and the presentation was given live.

If the crowd after the presentation was any indication, the potentially controversial topic was a major success.  (The material strongly criticizes the Quality Assurance industry's failure to keep up with technology.)

How to Get from Estimates to Actuals In the Black
[PDF (zipped)]

As presented at a brown bag lunch for the Emerging Technology Center, in Baltimore, on February 5th, 2003.  Covers the where estimates come from, the relationship between the estimate and a company's profit, and how to improve estimates through business intelligence.  (See the flyer.)
The ETC reported that it was the highest attended brown bag up to then.

This same presentation was provided as a 3-hour professional development seminar for the Lattanze Center at Loyola of Maryland's Sellinger Graduate School of Business and Management on April 10th, 2003.(See the flyer.)  The Center explained that normally attendance at their professional development series draws 20-25 attendees.  This session drew nearly 50 registrants and over 40 who attended, nearly exceeding the room's capacity.

Process Discipline in the Information Age.

A Tutorial on Extreme Programming (XP) and the Quality Assurance of XP for the Baltimore area section of the American Society for Quality, (ASQ) on April 9th, 2002.  The well-received tutorial described what XP is, why is came about, and how process discipline can be demonstrated within it.

Matching Management Processes and Development Methods: Safe Merging In the Fast Lane

A presentation for the Partners in Excellence 2nd Annual Information Technology Symposium, March 27, 2002.  Explained how to tailor software management processes to the agile, customer-driven software development processes of the "Information Age"
(The symposium was cancelled at the last minute due to lack of registration.)

Lightweight QA

A presentation and tutorial for the Quality Assurance Association of Maryland, February 12, 2002.  Described the challenges of applying legacy QA approaches in "lightweight" software development environments.  Suggested that legacy QA approaches strongly coupled development processes with management processes.  Thus. effective QA in non-legacy software development environments requires decoupling of development from management processes.  It also requires raising the "level of abstraction" from which QA is applied to allow for practical implementation of the QA discipline to more agile environments.  Extreme Programming was used as the target "lightweight" development environment into which a re-tooled QA process was expected to be implemented.  After the presentation, Entinex provided a tutorial on the basics of Extreme Programming.


If you have any trouble with downloading or viewing, or for full-sized versions of any of our presentations, please Contact Us and we'll be happy to provide them by email.

 

 

 

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Entinex does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of any information contained herein, nor shall Entinex be in any way liable for any delay in keeping such information current.  Entinex specifically disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to the use of this information or any results with respect thereto.

 

 

  
Did you know that your technology project has an 80% chance of failing? Do you know what to do to improve those odds? Do you know what to ask your software developer or vendor to make sure they know what to do so that the project you're paying them to do doesn't fail?
Would you like your software estimates to improve? Would you like to have predictability and consistency in your software projects? Wouldn't it be nice if you could forecast your capacity for new work and your sales effort? Wouldn't better estimats result in happier clients?

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