Raising Seed Capital by Steve Schlafman at RRE Ventures
CMMI for Services: a Case Study - Pedro Castro Henriques
1. Portugal
From development to
services in CMMI v1.3
– a case study
Braga, 3rd of October 2011
Pedro Castro Henriques
Director
Strongstep
2011-10-03
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4. Presentation Goals
• The benefits of implementing CMMI Level 2 for Services in a Development
company (CMMI dev level 3)
• The challenges associated to the migration from a pure development culture
to a services culture
• Where and how to combine CMMI for Development and CMMI for Services
level 2 best practices
• Conclusions and next steps
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5. Context
• The CMMI for Services constellation brings
• a new dimension of best practices in service management that complement
the software development life cycle
• works as a catalyzer for a service culture in traditionally development oriented
companies
• Some synergies and challenges will be addressed on the way the development
and services worlds can together create value
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7. Needs
• Gap that was missing in process oriented organizations for some type of activities
that intrinsically are continuous and involve less engineering
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8. Needs
• On top of that the fact that a model was needed that didn’t constrain itself for IT
related business but to services in any line of businesses
• CMMI for Services was a breakthrough in the best practices spectrum. With the
process capability aspects provided by the CMMI framework, these new service
management best practices filled the gap that was missing in process
oriented organizations for some type of activities that are continuous and involve
less engineering
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9. Case Study
• About the company - AMBISIG
• Information Systems Company based in Lisbon
• CMMI Development - Level 3 with a strong quality culture
• About 80 persons with mostly engineering background
• International clients
• They develop solutions mostly for central government, regional and
public organizations
• Their clients are demanding more and more for levels of service and
SLA’s
• Always looking for new ways to improve the way they work
• Also looking for new ways to find profit and new sources of income
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10. Case Study – CMMI services level 2
Processes that we defined:
• Work Management process (for services and projects)
• Requirement Management process(for services and projects)
• Service establishment process – in order to setup new services in the company
• Service delivery process - ex: receive a request; check it’s in the catalog of
services, solve the request
• Apart from … traditional – quality control, metrics, configuration management
with some adaptations
• Lessons learned
• Separate project management and service management processes – its
easier
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13. Advantages for users of CMMI dev using CMMI serv
1-The implementation of processes that are related to maintenance or “very small”
projects where a service philosophy applies better
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14. Advantages for users of CMMI dev using CMMI serv
2-A better transition from the project phase to the service phase (example:
maintenance service) where’s it’s important to have in mind the necessary steps for
a smooth service setup (change, configuration and release management)
Services must now follow clear work instructions (and not a project management
methodology)
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15. Advantages for users of CMMI dev using CMMI serv
3-The importance of a systematic feedback from the services to the development
teams provide insight about the utilization and errors in place (incident, problem and
service level management, measurement and analysis)
“Customers want more attention, more appreciation and more recognition when making their
purchases with you, not less. Customer service quality is simply essential. Now we have a more
clear continuous improvement of our services”, CEO of Ambisig – Vasco Ferreira
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16. Advantages for users of CMMI dev using CMMI serv
4-The creation of a culture of service where the solutions that are built are
intended for customers with expectations and needs in terms of service levels
This internal awareness provides a better focus on the usability aspects and
nonfunctional requirements
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17. Advantages for users of CMMI dev using CMMI serv
5- Services are a continuous source of income (example contract for maintenance)
• a Project has a finishing date and a total cost
• services have “no end date”
• To keep clients fidelity the service has to be well structured
• the more efficient the bigger profit you have
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18. Advantages to our client by implementing CMMI serv
• Customers want to continuously manage services and customer expectation …
• For example response time:
– Time to correct a bug or malfunction
– Time to implement a new requirement
• In the case of Ambisig show case– it led to a breakthrough:
• a new area of training services was created
• a new mechanism to make it easier to create new services
• A Monthly Services meeting was created:
• For continuous services improvement
• To articulate with client to have more feedback
• For example maintenance that was not properly organized “it was a poor cousin inside
the company” … started to get more visibility
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19. Advantages to our client by implementing CMMI serv
• More income – raise on billing
• Ex: new “chargeable” services areas: training and coaching
• Company realized it was “giving away free” some services
• Service reports are now sent to the customer
– Customer started to appreciate more and recognize the value added of the
provided services
=
With Services area more structured -> revenue is higher and more constant
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21. Chalenges for users of CMMI dev using CMMI serv
1-The need for the team to understand that project management is different
from work management, though there are a lot of common practices
People need to get into a service culture … with training and experience
(its necessary to give much training to those who will be in charge of
designing, setting up and providing the services )
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22. Chalenges for users of CMMI dev using CMMI serv
2-Service management is not just IT service management.
An IT company thinks typically service is just IT services or to manage incidents …
It can be services that have nothing to do with IT
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23. Chalenges for users of CMMI dev using CMMI serv
3- Requirements definition and management is a different subject in the services
world.
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24. Chalenges for users of CMMI dev using CMMI serv
4- Service planning - it’s very different from planning a project in the typical
engineering company culture, with its very diverse lifecycle
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26. Conclusions for
Users of CMMI dev … by using CMMI serv
Companies that already have processes in place in line with CMMI for Development
have the cost for this new direction greatly reduced - specially for CMMI SRV
ML2
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27. Conclusions for
Users of CMMI dev … by using CMMI serv
• Difficulties:
• Explain what a service is to an “engineering company”
– Is not just IT service and incident management
• Explain the benefits … to people that are used to be in the background …
and not on the spotlight
… one of the most important thing is to build a culture of services
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28. Conclusions
Benefits:
• Services area/department
• Services became more clear and accountable - is not providing services for free “without
realizing”
• More sources of income (new services arise, example: training, coaching)
– Service contrast with project – possibility of a steady and continuous income
• Customer recognizes easier the added value of services - by seeing the reports of
services
• The company started to value more services itself
• Structured services help keeping client “fidelity”
• The more efficient services, the higher is the profit
• Service culture can improve: company, the service department, the relation with clients
… as well as the income/profit
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29. Contact
Strongstep - Innovation in software quality
Email: geral@strongstep.pt
Web: www.strongstep.pt
Telefone: + 351 22 030 15 85
Porto Address:
UPTEC - Parque de Ciência e Tecnologia da U. Porto
Rua Alfredo Allen, 455/461
4200-135 Porto, Portugal
Lisbon Address:
Av. Infante Santo, Nº 63-3ºEsq.
1350-177 Lisbom, Portugal
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30. Next steps
• Move to higher maturity levels
in Services
• Go further out of IT scope to
bring more added value ->
new services
• Explore further, Services &
Innovation models together
(example NP 4457 – Portuguese
RDI norm)
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