Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
5.12 “The How”—Team Meetings, Task Monitoring, and
Course Correction
Another area where the CMMI can help Agile organizations as they grow
relates to team meetings. When I do gap analysis interviews in Agile organi-
zations, I often hear great “how-to” techniques that are often not written
down. Examples include the
daily standup meetings
for daily task manage-
ment, and Agile team practices related to task course correction. These are
good proven “how-to” techniques that meet the intent of specific practices
found in the Project Monitor and Control process area.
In the BOND case, I suggested that they describe in their Project Manage-
ment Plan (PMP) the daily standup meeting and how these meetings are
conducted. This serves a number of purposes. When new people come on
the project, they can come up to speed quickly by first reading the PMP. This
document captures the planned project vision.
Agile practices, while effective, don't lead to documenting this kind of infor-
mation. The CMMI project management practices lead you in this direction,
which can help Agile organizations share expectations across the organiza-
tion. This becomes increasingly important as organizations grow and new
people are brought in, especially those who might not have been previously
exposed to Agile techniques.
As just described, simply writing down what the teams were already doing
was often all that was needed. In other cases, the CMMI stimulated discus-
sions that led people at BOND to realize they did need some new management
reporting behaviors. One of those areas that needed change was reporting up
the chain to Senior Management.
5.13 Senior Management Briefings: An Area in Which the
CMMI Can Help Agile
LESSON 5
Looking out for the overall welfare of the company is a necessary practice
we are reminded of by CMMI Generic Practice 2.10: “Review the activities,
status, and results…with higher-level management and resolve issues.”
