Workforce Maturity.nl

P-CMM change request.

The P-CMM workgroup in the Netherlands would like to propose a new P-CMM process area “Organizational Management Culture”.

Motivation

• Studies[i] on high performance organizations [ii]indicate that management attitude and organizational culture are the most significant drivers of employee and organizational performance.

Since management culture is so important we would like to emphases this aspect in the P-CMM.

Content

We propose the following elements as part of this Practice Area:

Specific Goals

Specific Practices

Practices Associated to specific goal 1:

SP 1.1.            The manager promotes a culture of trust with all staff. The Management style reflects a high level of personal integrity,  supporting the culture of trust.

SP 1.2.            Responsibilities and the authority to operate accordingly are assigned to the lowest appropriate level. For a maturity level with empowered work teams this means that the responsibilities and authority are assigned to teams rather than to individuals. (Agile development and word class manufacturing processes are examples of work teams with team responsibility and authority).

SP 1.3.            The manager provides transparency to all staff on departmental goals, objectives, and financial as well as non financial status. Sub practice:

1. The Company's organizational mission, vision and strategy, including those of aligned units, familiar to all participants (stakeholders?).  all comply with and adjust their actions to these values

SP 1.4.            The manager promotes an open culture, in particular with regards to errors and mistakes, to ensure the organization does not put or apportion blame to individuals or other organizations

SP 1.5.            The management style, in particular the way staff is directed by management, is carefully aligned with the workforce characteristics (including seniority, professionalism, competences and maturity) and the organizations goals. Sub practice:

1. The manager is visible with the shop floor (gemba[1]), and facilitates individuals with issues above and beyond their influence

SP 1.6.            Management promotes and rewards a strong client focus to support a long term relationship with these clients, putting satisfying client's needs and ambitions above short term gains of the organization.

Practices Associated to specific goal 2:

SP 2.1.            The manager promotes an organization culture where (operational) decisions are made based on the knowledge and experience of acknowledged professionals

SP 2.2.            Goals and targets are aligned to the specific national, regional and company cultural characteristics. Goals are also realistic

SP 2.3.            Communication from and with management is not just one-sided but includes true dialogue

SP 2.4.            The manager gives credit where its due, publicly, in particular where staff has fulfilled assignments (result oriented instead of task oriented)

SP 2.5.            Management does not continue invest in non-performers. If training, coaching and other means of improving an individual's performance fail, a conscious decision is made to discontinue support on the non-performer, and the non-performer will be removed from the team that has been affected.

SP 2.6.            At the level of maturity, where empowered work teams are established, self supporting teams are assessed and rewarded by management on team performance and not on individual contribution. The individual contribution assessment and rewarding is conducted by the team itself under supervision of the manager to assure a fair treatment of all the team participants.

SP 2.7.            Management includes quality attributes in performance management, and does not focus exclusively on cost and budget characteristics

SP 2.8.            Management encourages staff to innovate. As an example individuals can take time to work on innovations. Also, employees are encouraged to join professional groups and attend seminars and other events related to their profession.

SP 2.9.            Employees are encouraged to participate in the organization's ecosystem (e.g. peer groups, seminars, intercompany workgroups, universities). Sub practice:

1. Employees are encouraged and authorized to take responsibility to intervene in processes execution when there are (is a risk of) errors or any  other major issues

_{[1] a Japanese term meaning "the real place”}

_[i]

_{- Kasarda, X. and X. Rondinelli, “Innovative infrastructure for agile manufacturers”, Sloan Management Review 39, no. 2 (Winter 1998): 73-82}

_{- E.E. Lawler III, “Treat people right! How organizations and individuals can propel each other into a virtuous spiral of success” (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2003)}

_{- Peters, T. and R. Waterman, “In Search Of Excellence” (Warner Books, 1982); J.C. Collins and J.I. Porras, “Built to last. Successful habits of visionary companies” (New York: Harper Business, 1994); J. Collins, “Good to great. Why some companies make the leap and others don’t” (London: Random House, 2001)}

_{- A.A. de Waal, “The Characteristics of High Performance Organizations,” in “Performance Measurement and Management: Public and Private,” ed. A. Neely, M. Kennerley and A. Walters (Cranfield: Cranfield School of Management, 2006), 203-210; A.A. de Waal, “The Characteristics of a High Performance Organization,” Handbook of Business Strategy,October (2006)}

_{-P. Strebel, “Trajectory management. Leading a business over time”(Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, 2003)}

_{- J.F. Manzoni, “From high performance organizations to an organizational excellence framework” in “Performance measurement and management control: superior organizational performance. Studies in managerial and financial accounting, volume 14”, ed. M.J. Epstein, and J.F. Manzoni (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2004)}

 _{[ii] According to the definition of A. de Waal “A High Performance Organization (HPO) is an organization that achieves results that are better than those of its peer group over a longer period of time by reacting and adapting quickly to changes; having a long-term orientation with integrated management processes; having the strategy, structure, processes and people aligned throughout the organization; focusing on continuously improving and reinventing its core capabilities; and spending much effort on improving working conditions and development opportunities for its workforce”.}

To integrate the People-CMM into the CMMI framework, the P-CMM could adopt generic practices in stead of the current Commitment, Ability, Measurement and Verification.

Question is if the current GPs of the CMMI would be sufficient for the P-CMM? I think that changes are needed on the following GPs:

- GP1: Organizational Policy.
This GP should emphasize the importance of a strategy for developing professionals. It should link the workforce strategy to the corporate strategy, crearing a business case to invest in people.

- GP 2.6: Manage configurations.
Is this GP applicable for the P-CMM? If so, then it should probably get a differebt title since as decsribed now in the CMMI it doesn't appeal to P-CMM users.

Missing:
What I miss in the current GPs of the CMMI is rewarding. Though related to compansation, rewarding goes further by emphasizing that the right behavior of profesionals should be recognized and rewarded in all possible ways. This is crucial to change behavior of those involved.

Please add your comments, etc!

People CMM News - People CMM Model to be updated

On January 3, 2011, the People CMM Team at the SEI opened a 3-month public comment and change request period for members of the community to offer guidance and suggestions and to request changes to the People CMM Team on how the model should be updated to reflect current thinking in workforce practice improvement.  Comments (guidance and suggestions on what the next version of People CMM should look like) and change requests (specific changes to People CMM components such as PAs, practices, etc.) are sought for the following topics:

1.  What changes should we include in the next version of People CMM to reflect the current practices in the three foundational areas of Human Resources, Organizational Change & Development, and Total Quality Management?

2.   What changes should we include in the next version of People CMM to better align the model with the SCAMPI Method in order to increase efficiency of appraisals and reduce confusion in evidence gathering and characterization of implementation?

3.   What changes should we include in the next version of People CMM to better align the model with CMMI V1.3?

More information will be available on the SEI Website.  The People CMM Change Request document can be found at http://www.sei.cmu.edu/cmmi/tools/cr/.

This CR describes how to deploy the P-CMM to support migration to Agile, and to support Agile teams in organizations. Since the P-CMM was developed independent from Agile, and before Agile methodologies became available, interpretation is needed on how to deploy P-CMM in an Agile context. To support using the P-CMM, this CR gives a roadmap of P-CMM process areas that an organization can implement as a start, to (using Agile principles) reap quick business benefits.

Some of the problems that organizations that implement Agile experience are:

-         Communication difficulties between new Agile teams and the existing line organization

-         Problems in fulfilling the higher work environment demands from Agile teams

-         Difficulties establishing ways to reward and support team culture, behaviour and results

-         Assuring the availability of the right competencies and skills, in time when teams need it

-         They have to find new ways to share and re-use knowledge and experience across teams

-         Existing management styles that conflict with the agile principles

The P-CMM can be used additional to the Agile methods to support their implementation. Implementing agile needs different disciplines and roles than mentioned in most Agile methods (like HR and middle management), which are within the scope and purpose of the P-CMM. Since the success of Agile depends on having competent and skilled professionals, addressing people issues that are relevant for Agile increases the acceptance and effective deployment of Agile in organizations.

Specific additions to the P-CMM Process Areas:

Staffing

-         Agile puts strong requirements on the so called “soft skills” like communication, collaboration and feedback; the P-CMM should emphasize these skills when recruiting new professionals.

-         To create and maintain high performing teams, it is important that teams are kept stable where possible and that changes to the teams are carefully managed, involving the team members as much as possible.

-         For larger agile organizations working with multiple teams it may be needed to deploy specific methods for team composition, like Belbin.

-         One of the agile principles is the 40 hour workweek. An organization should have insight in the needed capacity to assure that professionals working in the teams will be able to do their work within a 40 hour workweek.