CRITICAL FACTOR 1: MAKE THE PROCESS WHAT PEOPLE DO

I worked with one organization which took the familiar path of setting up process improvement teams to define organizational processes. The teams were formed by and named after the PAs in CMMI. Each team was composed of 4 to 6 members and they all worked for about 3 to 5 months to develop organizational processes which were also named after the CMMI PAs. Each member of each team spent about 2 to 4 hours per week on his or her team s process definition tasks . So, if you make some conservative assumptions and do the math, it cost the organization somewhere around 300 effort hours (probably about $15,000) for each of 6 defined processes. These estimates do not include building process implementation assets such as forms, templates, or checklists, nor does it including piloting the defined processes in the organization; it is strictly process definition work.

The Supplier Agreement Management Team developed a 50-page process which was called ” you guessed it ” SAM. Upon completion, the team gave it to people in the organization who have the responsibility to purchase materials and negotiate and establish contracts with vendors , suppliers, and consultants . The purchasing and contract management people reviewed the process document and rejected it outright . Why? The documented SAM process did not come close to describing how purchasing and contract management worked in the company.

So what went wrong? The people on the SAM team were very bright, very hard working individuals. They had been trained in CMMI and they knew what SAM was all about. They knew what a SAM procedure needed to describe to satisfy a SCAMPI appraisal, so they certainly had written a desired state process.

Here s what went wrong. The SAM team didn t stop to understand and incorporate into the process description the work being performed by people in the company who held jobs related to Supplier Agreement Management. They created a process which described very well how SAM could be performed in the organization, but they didn t create a process that described what people really do.

Eventually, my company was called in to help out. We pulled together in one room most of the people in the company who were responsible for material purchasing or planning and executing subcontracts. I asked each of them to go to a whiteboard and draw or write (in bulleted tasks) the processes they used. In a 2- hour workshop on 1 afternoon, 5 people had defined the organization s SAM process. It took about another 60 hours to turn it into something usable but, the point is, we made the process what people do.

A process description ” a document ” is a virtual representation of a process; it is not the process. The process is what people do; it is the work they perform. I ve seen appraisal teams come up somewhat empty handed in terms of finding documented organizational processes and conclude that the organization has no processes. They were wrong. Every organization has processes; you just need to stop looking for paper long enough to see them.

The fastest way to define organizational processes is to go out and talk to people or observe them doing their job. Record what different people in the same role do; then look for the common tasks or activities and any common tools or work products they use. This will be the basis, the starting point, for the process definition ” the paper. Of course people won t be doing exactly what s written in CMMI. They can t because CMMI is a model and it defines a desired state. The process descriptions and documents will need to be the bridge between what people are doing (the current state) and what the leadership wants them to do (the desired state).

(Also read Chapter 1 ” News Flash! There Is a Level 1!)