Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
process needs resulting from this off-site meeting led to an increased organi-
zational focus on process that was clearly needed.
LESSON 5
Forcing a discussion of roles and responsibilities can be the catalyst for dis-
cussions related to when people feel they have responsibility and authority
to make decisions and when they feel they need to raise the decision up.
This can lead to capturing and documenting valuable criteria that might
then be used to train others in the organization.
How the CMMI Can Help with Delegation and Effective Use of
People
Many of the practices within the CMMI model relate to providing
criteria
to
use and identifying who to involve (e.g., key
stakeholders)
in the decision-
making process when you don't have all the answers. The CMMI does not
tell you what the criteria need to be, or who needs to be involved. This is left
up to each organization to determine based on its own business needs.
Some believe the CMMI is prescriptive.
MYTH
The CMMI is prescriptive; unless by prescriptive one means it pre-
scribes each organization must think and decide for itself how decisions are
made in that organization.
It also doesn't prescribe when an organization or a project needs to make cer-
tain decisions.
INSIGHT
To b e A g i l e a n d n o t c o m p r o m i s e t h e q u a l i t y o f p r o d u c t s
requires decisions based on sound criteria. The CMMI encourages the use
of such criteria throughout the model. It doesn't specify what the criteria
should be, but it does expect an organization to share its own criteria with
its people, helping them make better decisions.
This approach to decision making is consistent with Agile approaches. Agile
approaches do favor making decisions as late as possible when the informa-
tion is most accurate. Nothing in the CMMI says that an organization cannot
provide such guidance within its criteria. The
criteria
encouraged throughout
