HOW MYTHS ARE BORN


One of the reasons CMM- and CMMI-based process improvement is so difficult is because of the urban myths which develop and then take on a life of their own. Often times, you find out that you d have been better off if the engineering group had never even heard of either of these models.

How do myths originate? They originate the same way all other myths, rumors, and misdirected beliefs are born: they are born out of people having a little, but not quite enough, information, and filling in the gaps for themselves . Nature abhors a vacuum and people abhor lack of information and knowledge. When they don t have the means or the energy to fill in the missing pieces, they ll just make the stuff up. After a few repetitions, the myths become the new facts, the new reality.

Once the myth becomes institutionalized in the culture, it becomes very difficult for process focus people such as SEPG personnel or process managers to debunk them. I experienced a very interesting cultural phenomenon , in the form of language, when I changed jobs from Xerox to go work in the Application Services Division at CSC. Outside of CSC, the process improvement industry generally refers to maturity levels as CMM levels, and software process improvement was called just that or the acronym SPI. When I got to CSC, everything having anything to do with software process improvement or CMM was SEI. In CSC, when organizations reached CMM Maturity Level 2, it was SEI Level 2, the process improvement initiatives were SEI programs, the CMM key practices were SEI requirements, and people presumably knowledgeable about process improvement were SEI experts. When I first started mentioning CMM, I got puzzled looks; people had no idea what I was talking about. It took me several months before I was able to get even a few key people in my organization to understand that SEI is a building and an organization at Carnegie Mellon University and that it is CMM or CMMI which define maturity levels. Many people in CSC still won t understand the distinction until they read this book. Some who read it still won t believe it; such is the nature of people.

I learned an important ancillary lesson in this experience, one that s been known to sociologists for many years : language often defines peoples beliefs, which in turn , defines their behaviors. Change the language and you ll change everything.

Sometimes, in spite of your efforts to bring facts into the daylight of the organization s consciousness, individuals will perpetuate myths for their benefit. For example, one of the popular myths I encountered at CSC was that there were only 30 lead assessors in the world. Such myths are often perpetuated by people who perceive that the myth gives them more power or status.




Real Process Improvement Using the CMMI
Real Process Improvement Using the CMMI
ISBN: 0849321093
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2004
Pages: 110
Authors: Michael West

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