Real Process Improvement Using the CMMI

Tools exist which can automate many software and system process tasks and activities:

• Requirements management and traceability

• Software and system size , cost, and schedule estimating

• Project scheduling

• Project tracking and reporting

• Risk analysis, planning, and managing

• Configuration and data management

• Measurement collection, analysis, and reporting

• Process asset definition and management

Tools can automate the work people do. Tools cannot :

• Improve leadership

• Keep anyone from making bad or irresponsible decisions

• Eliminate politics

• Fix a broken process (but they can make bad things happen faster)

• Motivate people

• Change the culture

• Relieve people of having to think

Often, the cost of the tool is just the tip of the iceberg of the total cost. Other costs include:

• Training and learning costs

• Integration with existing environment and platforms

• Initial loss of productivity during learning and transition

• Tailoring or customization

• Data migration from legacy systems

• Cost of running parallel systems or processes during transition

You can and should use the same vendor selection criteria you came up with for contracting a consultant as the criteria for selecting a process tool vendor. In addition to that criteria, the questions your organization should ask before buying a process or process improvement tool are:

• Does the tool do something you need or want? (Or is it just cool?)

• Would a lower cost, less elaborate solution satisfy your current and future requirements?

• How much are the unobvious labor costs: learning, tailoring and customizing, data migration, interfaces?

• How much expert labor could you buy for the cost of the tool?

• What will the tool do that can t be done just as easily and at a lower cost? At the current average CMMI consulting rates, you could not spend $200,000 on a tool and purchase about 1,300 hours of very good consulting. Which will benefit your organization more?