Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
9.1 What You Will Learn in This Chapter
• Why focusing on repeating specific weaknesses is critical to rapid
process improvement payback
• Four steps to help locate your own repeating specific weaknesses and
how to keep them from coming back
• How to integrate short focused practice sessions into a daily routine and
why this is critical to real performance improvement
• Perhaps a few techniques to help improve your golf game
9.2 Motivation and Objective
In this chapter, I share a case study where I used an Agile approach and the
CMMI together to help solve a personal challenge. My objective here is to
help the reader think a little outside the box by seeing how Agile techniques
and CMMI practices can be applied in a different domain. Hopefully, you
can use this information to help solve your own challenges—professional or
personal
1
[35].
Background and Challenge Faced
When I was a teenager, I spent a great deal of time and energy on my golf
game because my goal at that point in my life was for professional golf to
become my career path. I originally learned the game from my father and a
golf professional named Paul Kern. As it turned out, I chose another direc-
tion shortly after starting college and didn't play golf at all for over thirty
years. When I was about fifty years old, I started playing again when my son
asked me to teach him the game. About ten years later in the spring of 2008, a
good friend of mine, Bob, who I had played golf with on my high school
team, asked if I would go with him and two other friends (Dave and Frank)
on a week-long golfing trip. It was planned for the fall of that year in
Williamsburg, Virginia (Marriott's Manor Club at Ford's Colony), to cele-
brate his sixtieth birthday.
I reluctantly agreed, because to enjoy playing that much golf I felt I had to per-
form at a level of proficiency I was uncertain I could attain given the demands
1. An analogy between process improvement and golf is also provided in “CMMI Distilled.”
