Upcoming Presentation: "Creatively Applying CMMI-SVC in a Very Small Consulting Firm"

The NDIA CMMI 9th Technology Conference and User Group is coming up next month (Nov. 16-19, 2009) in Denver, Colorado. If you can get past the extremely long name, it could be a worthwhile place to go if you want to learn more about the CMMI. And, to hear industry experts. Or me.

Maybe they chose their presenters by using a dart-throwing monkey, because somehow they chose me to give not one, not two, but THREE talks there! One of these will be about my company's process improvement efforts using the CMMI for Services as a model. Because you, the public, demand it --- or perhaps because I'm too lazy to write a real blog entry right now -- here's an abstract of the presentation I'm working on at this very moment:

The CEO of a small consulting company invites you to listen to how practical and creative application of the CMMI for Services (CMMI-SVC) has measurably improved his organization’s bottom line.

In January 2009, Leading Edge Process Consultants began applying portions of the CMMI for Services to its business. Instead of pursuing a maturity level rating, though, we’ve been obsessed with using the CMMI-SVC for real process improvement. Because we lack the time and money required for a highly formal, comprehensive, internal improvement initiative, we’ve adopted a more flexible (and yes, sometimes “agile”) approach. Our simple but effective strategy has been to (1) decide on an area of our business that most needs improvement, (2) address that area by using relevant portions of the CMMI-SVC as a guide, and (3) repeat as needed. This approach has successfully mitigated the risk of biting off more than our limited resources can chew, and has virtually guaranteed that that our process improvement effort has bottom-line relevance. Although much work remains to be done, we’ve already realized sizable gains.

During this presentation, we’ll discuss some of the keys to our success so far: creative selection of the services most in need of improvement; just-in-time process improvement and as-we-go process documentation; laser-beam focus on our biggest problem areas; emphasis on capability level 1; and success measured by net income rather than maturity level attainment.

Attendees will walk away with an understanding of how practical, creative application of the CMMI for Services (CMMI-SVC) has been used to generate real business value in a small consulting company.