Common Misunderstandings of Defined Processes and Agility - Integrating CMMI and Agile Development - page 136

The term “relevant stakeholder” when used in the CMMI means:
A stakeholder that is identified for involvement in specified activities and is
included in a plan.
Now, let us look closer at the effect on the organization of the way NANO
viewed this generic practice, along with a key characteristic of many specific
practices.
6.10 How Some View Process in Agile Organizations
During the gap analysis at NANO it became clear that many people in the
organization were good at what they did, and knew who they needed to
interact with to successfully carry out their jobs. However, when I reviewed
their written processes I found them lacking in key essentials found using
Generic Practices, such as the identification of relevant stakeholders to involve. I
also found them lacking in criteria for consideration when decisions needed to
be made. Refer to Table 6-1.
Table 6-1 CMMI Level 3 Essentials Missed in “Agile-like” Organizations
Involving relevant stakeholders
Use of criteria to aid decisions
The recommendation to include criteria within process descriptions can be
found in many of the Specific Practices throughout the CMMI model. Exam-
ples include:
Te c h n i c a l S o l u t i o n , S p e c i f i c P r a c t i c e 1 . 1 D e v e l o p A l t e r n a t i v e S o l u t i o n s a n d S e l e c t i o n
Criteria
Decision Analysis and Resolution, Specific Practice 1.2 Establish Evaluation Criteria
Ve r i f i c a t i o n , S p e c i f i c P r a c t i c e 1 . 3 E s t a b l i s h Ve r i f i c a t i o n P ro c e d u re s a n d C r i t e r i a .
Although many people understood the daily issues they faced, who they
needed to involve, and what criteria to use when making key decisions, they
had written their processes as if no one else ever needed to be involved and no
decisions ever needed to be made once the process was under way.