CMMI–Agile Process Combo

How to be Agile with CMMI

@ excellenceinmeasurement.com

Margaret Tanner Glover, CEO of Excellence in Measurement Technology

Debra Dennie, LMI Program Manager

January 27, 2017

ABOUT LMI

LMI is a consulting firm dedicated to INSIGHT

Our innovative problem solving provides
improving the management of valuable insights into possible solutions.
government. With more than 1,000
consultants, we design and implement OBJECTIVITY
solutions to some of the toughest Our independence ensures we operate
problems facing government managers in free from conflicts of interest.
logistics, information technology, and
resource allocation. For 55 years, LMI has PRACTICAL RESULTS
placed our clients’ interests first. Our solutions are outcome driven and
results oriented.

SHARED PURPOSE
Our shared spirit of public service and deep knowledge of
government operations enhance our recommendations.

SIGNIFICANT VALUE
Our net revenue supports our mission, not
shareholder return, delivering more value for the
dollar. 2
ABOUT EMT
Our consultants can provide your organization
Excellence in Measurement Technology is with mentoring, training, appraisals and audits.
a business improvement consultancy We are certified and experienced in the following:
specializing in CMMI, Agile, Lean, Six
Sigma, and other methodologies. Our • Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI)
mission is to help our clients to • Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)
Program Consultant
successfully analyze and achieve their
• Certified Scrum Master (CSM)
specific business goals. We aim to
• Certified Product Owner (CPO)
pragmatically apply our knowledge and • Lean Manufacturing
experience of industry best practices to • ITIL Foundations
achieve measurable business • Six Sigma Black Belt
improvement for your organization. • ISO Lead Auditor for:
• ISO 9000 (Quality Management Systems)
• ISO 13485 (Medical Devices)
• ISO 20000 (Information Systems)
• ISO 27000 (Information Security)
• Cloud Security Knowledge (CSK)
• And even more…
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Agenda

1. About Agile, SAFe, and CMMI

2. CMMI-Agile Crosswalk
1. Agile Ceremonies
2. Agile Roles
3. Agile Practices
3. LMI Case Study: Agile & CMMI
4. Conclusion

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An excerpt from the
“GAO Agile Development and Implementation Guide”

“During the auditing process, GAO has encountered programs that are
employing Agile methods in its IT solutions. These programs have
faced many challenges as they seek to implement and manage Agile IT
programs in the federal government. These challenges include, among
other things, meeting federal reporting requirements, maintaining and
reviewing documentation, measuring progress, and lacking guidance.
While systems engineering and project control guides offer some
insight into best practices, Agile methods are changing the traditional
federal software development and implementation paradigm.”

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What is Agile?

Waterfall Approach Agile Approach

ag·ile
/ˈajəl/
Fixed Fixed Fixed
adjective requirements resources time

1. able to move quickly and easily.

2. relating to or denoting a method
of project management, used
especially for software
development, that is
characterized by the division of
tasks into short phases of work Estimated Estimated Estimated
and frequent reassessment and resources time features
adaptation of plans.

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The Agile Manifesto and Principles

The Manifesto for Agile Software Development Twelve Principles behind the Agile Manifesto

“We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it A brief summary of the guiding practices that support teams
and helping others do it. Through this work we have come to value: implementing and executing with agility:

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools #1: Satisfy the Customer #7: Working Software
Working software over comprehensive documentation #2: Embrace Change #8: Sustainable Pace
#3: Frequent Delivery #9: Technical Excellence
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
#4: Cross-Functional #10: Keep it Simple
Responding to change over following a plan
Collaboration #11: Self-Organization
That is, while there is value in the items on the right,
#5: Support and Trust #12: Inspect and Adapt
#6: Face-to-Face
we value the items on the left more.”
Conversation

Summarized by Marc Bless (marcbless.blogspot.com)

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Agile Methodologies

• In order to implement these Agile principles, a variety

of methodologies and frameworks have been
developed, including:
The Agile Manifesto and – Scrum
Principles sound great, but – Extreme Programing (XP)
. . . where do all of those – Kanban
Agile terms like “scrum
– and many more . . .
master” and “story point”
come from? • Many development teams even create hybrid
methodologies (such as Scrumban or ScrumXP) by
picking best practices from multiple methodologies.
• Additionally, there are large-scale methodologies for
implementing Agile across organizations…

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The Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)

• Synchronizes alignment,
collaboration, and delivery for
large numbers of Agile teams.
• Scalable and modular,
supporting from under a
hundred to thousands of
practitioners.
• Built upon knowledge from
Agile development, Lean
product development, and
systems thinking.

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What is the CMMI?

• The Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI®) is a world-class

performance improvement framework for competitive organizations that want
to achieve high-performance operations.
• Building upon an organization’s business performance objectives, CMMI
provides a set of practices for improving processes, resulting in a performance
improvement system that paves the way for better operations and
performance.
• CMMI helps an organization develop their organizational capabilities by
learning new behaviors that can help improve performance, speed, quality and
profitability.

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What is the CMMI?

• The CMMI is divided into Process Areas (PAs) named for their area of
coverage in any software development effort, examples are Configuration
Management (CM), Measurement and Analysis (MA), Process and Product
Quality Assurance (PPQA), etc.
– There are 22 total PAs in CMMI for Development (CMMI-DEV).

• With each Process Area, there are a series of Specific Practices (SP) identified
for that Process Area. Each Process Area explains what needs to be done, but
the user of the model chooses “how” to do it. CMMI is lifecycle-agnostic.

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Using CMMI & Agile Together

• Agile, at its core, is only a set of prescriptive

How do you manage
principles. It’s up to the organization to
changes to
determine what practices and processes to CMMI requirements?
use in order to implement those principles.
• A variety of Agile methodologies can be
selected from and adapted, based on which That’s easy – they’re
one best fits the organization. Even heavier- just added to the
weight models like SAFe offer some backlog! Agile
flexibility.
• CMMI is a descriptive model and is
life-cycle agnostic. Some Specific Practices
Well, it’s a real pain…
of CMMI are actually more easily satisfied
Waterfall
by Agile practices than Waterfall practices!

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The CMMI-Agile Crosswalk: How It Works
A definition of the Agile practice/role/artifact will appear here, from the GAO Agile Development and Implementation Guide’s glossary
(when available).

Agile:
Specific information about the Agile
practice/role/artifact appears here.
SAFe:
Information about SAFe equivalent of the Agile
practice/role/artifact appears here. More
information will be here depending on how much
the SAFe equivalent differs from and adds to the
original Agile item.
• Note: Each Agile item may have more CMMI
Process Areas related to it than are shown in the
chart. Agile items may also relate to additional or
fewer process areas depending on the
organization’s implementation of the Agile item.

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Agile Ceremonies

• Vision
• Roadmap
• Sprint Review / Demo
• Retrospective

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Vision
“The highest level of Agile planning, the vision is strategic in nature and is infrequently changed.”

Agile:
The Product Vision statement is an elevator pitch,
or a quick summary, to communicate how your
product supports the company’s or organization’s
strategies.
SAFe:
The Vision describes a future view of the solution
to be developed, reflecting Customer and
stakeholders needs as well as Features and
Capabilities that are proposed to address those
need. It provides the larger, contextual overview
and purpose of the solution under development.
Vision can be applied at any level in the
Framework (Team, Program, Value Stream,
Portfolio).

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Roadmap
“The roadmap is the second level of Agile planning and distills the vision into a high level plan that outlines work
spanning one or more releases.”
Agile:
The Product Roadmap is the overall view of the
product’s requirements and a valuable tool for
planning and organizing the journey of product
development.”.
SAFe:
The Roadmap communicates planned Agile
Release Train and Value Stream deliverables and
Milestones over a timeline. The Roadmap
includes committed deliverables and visibility into
the forecasted deliverables of the next few
Program Increments. It is developed and updated
by Solution and Product Management as the
Vision and delivery strategy evolve.

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Sprint Review / Demo
“Sprint reviews are meetings to review and demonstrate the user stories that the development team completed during
the sprint.”
Agile:
Sprint reviews demonstrate and showcase the
development team’s finished work, and allow
stakeholders to provide feedback on that work.
SAFe:
Depending on the scope of the Solution, there are
three Demos in SAFe:
the Team Demo, the System Demo, and the
Solution Demo. The Team Demo reviews the
increment that results from the Iteration in order
to receive the fast feedback they need to build the
right thing. The System Demo provides an
aggregated view of all of the new system delivered
by the Agile Release Train. The Solution Demo is
the primary measure of progress for the Value
Stream.

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Retrospective
“A team meeting that occurs at the end of every iteration to review lessons learned and to discuss how the team can
improve in the future.”
Agile:
The sprint retrospective is a meeting where the
scrum master, the product owner, and the
development team discuss how the sprint went
and what they can do to improve the next sprint.
SAFe:
At the end of each Iteration, Agile Teams gather
for an Iteration Retrospective, where the team
members discuss their practices and identify
ways to improve.

The Retrospective and Problem-Solving Workshop

identifies Team- or Program-level issues, performs
root cause analysis, and generates improvement
backlog items.

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Agile Roles

• Scrum Master
• Product Owner
• Agile / Development Teams

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Scrum Master
“A member of the scrum team responsible for protecting the team from organizational distractions, clearing roadblocks,
and keeping the process consistent.”
Agile:
A scrum master is a servant-leader who supports
the team so that it is fully functional and
productive. The scrum master role is an enabling
role, rather than an accountability role. A scrum
master is an expert in agile processes and can
coach others.
SAFe:
In SAFe, the Scrum Master also helps the team
coordinate with other teams on the Agile Release
Train and communicates status to management
as needed. The Scrum Master is the
representative in the Scrum of Scrums meeting.

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Product Owner
“The ‘voice of the customer’, accountable for ensuring business value is delivered by creating customer-centric items,
ordering them, and maintaining them in the backlog.”
Agile:
The product owner is responsible for bridging the
gaps between the customer, business
stakeholders, and the development team. The
product owner is a member of the team and works
daily to help clarify requirements.
SAFe:
Outside of the team, the Product Owner has
significant relationships and responsibilities,
including working with Product Management to
prepare for the Program Increment Planning
meeting and the System Demo.

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Agile / Development Teams
“An Agile Team is a cross-functional group of individuals who have the ability and authority to define, build, and test the
product.”
Agile:
Agile teams are a small group of dedicated
individuals who are cross-functional, self-
managing and self-organizing. Agile teams are
directly accountable for creating project
deliverables. Ideally, team members are collocated
and dedicated to one project for the duration of
the project.
SAFe:
In SAFe, Agile Teams are not stand-alone units.
Instead, they are an integral part of the Agile
Release Train where they collectively have
responsibility for delivering larger value. Teams
operate in the context of the train, adhering to its
Vision, collaborating with other teams, and
participating in key Agile Release Train
ceremonies.

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Agile Practices

• Kanban
• User Stories / Stories
• Definition of Done
• Backlog
• Velocity
• Burn-Down Chart
• Themes / Epics
• Test-First / Test-Driven Development
• Proactive / Built-In Quality
• Continuous Improvement

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About Kanban

• Japanese for “visual signal”

Work revolves around the Kanban Board:
• Developed by Toyota as a part of their Just-
In-Time (JIT) Manufacturing process —
now a part of Lean Manufacturing
• A “pull” system for work, based on
the team’s capacity
• Enables Agile teams to
– Visualize work flow
– Establish work-in-progress (WIP) limits
– Measure the cycle time
– Continuously improve their processes
• Teams may choose Kanban as their Agile
method or combine Kanban practices with
other Agile methods
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Kanban
“The focus of Kanban is to optimize the throughput of work by visualizing its flow of work through the process, limiting
work-in-progress, and explicitly identifying policies for the flow of work.”
Agile:
Agile teams use Kanban as their framework when
they need more flexible planning options, faster
output, clearer focus, and more transparency in
the development cycle than Scrum and/or XP
would provide.
SAFe:
Some teams choose to apply Kanban as their
primary Agile method. However, these teams are
“on the train”, and certain rules of the Agile
Release Train must be applied.

The Value Stream and Program Kanbans are

connected to the Portfolio Kanban, together they
constitute a content governing system for
decisions about what gets built.

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Themes / Epics

“A requirement at its highest level, or in SAFe, the largest crosscutting initiatives.”

Agile:
Themes are logical groups of features and
requirements at their highest levels. Themes are
largest group of requirements which are broken
down into Epics, Features, User Stories and Tasks
are traced to.
SAFe:
Epics are significant initiatives that help guide
value streams toward the larger aim of the
portfolio. They are investment intensive and far-
ranging in impact. They require a formulation and
analysis of cost, impact, and opportunity in a
lightweight business case, as well as financial
approval before implementation. They may
appear at the portfolio, value stream, and program
levels.

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User Stories / Stories
“A high-level requirement definition written in everyday or business language. It captures the ‘who’, ‘what’ and ‘why’ of a
requirement in a simple, concise way.”
Agile:
The user story is a simple description of a product
requirement in terms of what that requirement
must accomplish for whom. It also includes
validation steps to test whether the working
requirement for the user story is correct. The
effort required to complete each user story is
estimated as story points to help teams plan the
sprint.
SAFe:
SAFe includes Enabler Stories in addition to User
Stories, which are used by teams to bring visibility
to the work items needed in support of
exploration, architecture, and infrastructure.

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Definition of Done
“A predefined set of criteria defined and displayed by the team that must be met before a work item is considered
complete.”
Agile:
To consider a requirement complete and ready to
demonstrate at the end of a sprint, that
requirement must meet the scrum team’s
definition of done. The product owner and the
development team agree upon the details of the
definition. The product owner and the
development team may also create a list of
acceptable risks.
SAFe:
Taken together, the continuous buildup of system
functionality, along with continuous verification
and validation of the elements of the solution, as
well as the final solution itself, can be reflected in
a scaled Definition of Done.

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Backlog

“The backlog is a list of user stories to be addressed by working software.”

Agile:
The product backlog is the full list of requirements,
often documented as user stories, that defines the
product. The product backlog can be fluid
throughout the project. During sprint planning,
stories in the Product Backlog which support the
sprint goals are pulled into the sprint backlog.
SAFe:
SAFe has a Portfolio Backlog, a Value Stream and
Program Backlog, and Team Backlog, which each
contains items from the same level as well as
items from higher-level Kanban systems. Items
from the Program and Team Backlogs which
support the Program Increment and Iteration
Goals are pulled into their respective backlogs.

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Velocity

“Velocity measures the amount of work a team can deliver each iteration.”

Agile:
Velocity is used to forecast how much
functionality an agile team can deliver within a set
amount of time. Velocity is measured by the
number of user story points that the team
completes in each sprint. However, velocity should
not be used to dictate how much work the team
should complete in a sprint. Velocity is a team-
specific metric and should not be compared
across teams.
SAFe:
In SAFe, story point velocity must have a common
starting baseline in order to make accurate
estimates for initiatives that require coordination
across multiple teams.

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Burn-Down Chart
“A visual tool displaying progress via a simple line chart representing the
remaining work (vertical axis) over time (horizontal axis).”
Agile:
A burndown chart enables anyone, at a glance, to
see the status of the sprint. It shows whether the
effort is going as planned, is in better shape than
expected, or is in trouble.
SAFe:
In addition to tracking the status of a Team’s
Iteration execution, a Program Increment
burndown chart shows the status of the Program
Increment for the entire Agile Release Train.

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Test-Driven / Test-First Development

“A software development process of writing automated customer acceptance and unit tests before coding.”

Agile:
Originally an Extreme Programming practice, Test-
Driven Development is a quality development
technique practiced by first creating and running
the test for the requirement, developing the
requirement until it passes the test, then
refactoring the code as much as possible while
still having it able to pass the test.
SAFe:
Test-first is a philosophy that supports
Built-in Quality, one of the four Core Values of
SAFe. It can be divided into Test-Driven
Development and Acceptance Test-Driven
Development, which are both supported by the
practice of Automated Testing.

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Proactive / Built-in Quality
“At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior
accordingly.” (from the 12 Agile Principles)
Agile:
Agile approaches have a number of practices that
allow and encourage scrum teams to proactively
create quality products. These include an
emphasis on excellence and good design, use of
quality development techniques, built-in
acceptance criteria, daily, high-fidelity
communication and collocation, sustainable
development, and regular inspection and adaption.
SAFe:
Built-in-Quality is one of the four Core Values of
SAFe. The Enterprise’s ability to deliver new
functionality with the fastest sustainable lead time
and to be able to react to rapidly changing
business environments is dependent on Solution
quality.

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Continuous Improvement

“The philosophy of continuous improvement is integral to Agile.”

Agile:
The agile tenet of inspect and adapt is a key to
creating quality products. Throughout an agile
project, you look at both your product and your
process (inspect) and make changes as
necessary (adapt). Inspecting and adapting is
performed during the sprint review and sprint
retrospective, as well as throughout each
workday.
SAFe:
Relentless Improvement is one of the four pillars
in SAFe’s House of Lean. Opportunities for
relentless improvement occur continuously
throughout development but the Team
Retrospective and the Inspect & Adapt workshop
provide dedicated time and opportunity for
improvement.

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LMI CASE STUDY: CMMI and Agile

Challenge Solution Results

• Continuously improve software • Adopted Agile Scrum for LMI • Appraised by the CMMI
development processes software development projects Institute at Level 3 for
to deliver value to our clients CMMI-DEV v1.3 and
• Reduce cost, increase speed CMMI-SVC v1.3
- Working software over
to market and improve
comprehensive • Improved software
quality documentation
development processes
• Obtain competitive advantage - Customer collaboration
over contract negotiation • High performing teams
• Assess LMI’s process maturity
level using the V1.3 CMMI-DEV* - Responding to change over • Delivered working software
and CMMI-SERVICES models following a plan1 of value to our clients
- Implemented Atlassian Tool • Gained competitive
Suite to support the Agile advantage
process

*All CMMI-DEV model practices focus on the activities of the developer organization. Five process areas focus on practices specific
to development: addressing requirements development, technical solution, product integration, verification, and validation.
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1 http://agilemanifesto.org/
Approach – Agile Scrum and CMMI Models
• Implemented Agile Scrum
• Identified key projects
• Conducted training
– Project team specific
– Obtained individual certifications
(CSM, PMI-ACP, ICAgile)
• Assigned roles (i.e. Product owners,
ScrumMaster, development team)
• Followed Agile Scrum ceremonies
– Daily Standup
– Sprint Planning
– Pointing
– Backlog Grooming
– Sprint Review
– Retrospectives
• Refined quality processes and
operating procedures aligned
with best practices and CMMI
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Approach – Atlassian Tool Suite

• Adopted Atlassian Tool Suite

• Pre-defined workflow ensures
traceabilty throughout the process
• Enter user stories with
acceptance criteria in Jira
• Use Confluence for collaboration
and release notes
• Implemented Crucible
for code reviews
• Use Bitbucket for version control
• Bamboo for CI and build server
• Combined with SharePoint
provides a common repository

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Appraisal – CMMI-DEV v1.3 and CMMI-SVC v1.3
Conducted appraisal
• Lead Appraiser: Margaret Glover, Excellence in • Having a lead appraiser with a deep
Measurement understanding of Agile development is important
• Sponsor: Nelson Ford, LMI President and CEO to ensure a common understanding during an
appraisal.
• LMI Quality Manager: Rebecca Lawler
– Margaret Glover was able to ask the right questions with an
• LMI appraisal team members: Mike McIntire, appreciation and understanding of Agile ceremonies and
Debra Dennie, Helge Soriede, Chuck Lorence artifacts.

• Selected projects from across the organization

– Aircraft Sustainability Model (ASM)
– The Health and Human Services(HHS) Centers for
Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Center for
Consumer Information and Oversight (CCIIO), Rate and
Benefit Package Review and Quality Health Plan
Certification
– USPS Safety Tool Kit for Program Management and
Compliance

LMI was appraised by the CMMI Institute at Level 3 for CMMI-DEV v1.3 and CMMI-SVC v1.3

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Benefits of CMMI and Agile
LMI was appraised by the CMMI Institute at Level 3 for CMMI-DEV v1.3 and CMMI-SVC v1.3
• Consistently and predictably deliver working software of value
– CMMI models and Agile ceremonies result in improved customer satisfaction through increased
visibility and interaction between stakeholders, end users and development/test team
– Minimizes expectation gaps
– Promotes higher levels of employee engagement with high
performing teams
• LMI was voted as one of the “best places to work”
• Best practices are captured, shared and adopted across the organization
– Sprint retrospectives empower employees to have an active role in continuous process
improvement
– Results in higher quality deliverables with fewer escaped defects
• Provides a competitive advantage for proposals
– Many government clients require CMMI Level 3 to compete
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Key Take-Aways

• CMMI and Agile are well aligned • Many process areas are satisfied by the
– CMMI is agnostic regarding the SDLC Agile Scrum approach, for example:
– CMMI does not require “paperweight” – The Sprint backlog in Jira with user stories
documentation per the Waterfall era along with Sprint Planning meetings provide
(i.e. SRS, PDD, SDD) evidence that requirements are managed
– User stories captured in a tool such as – Burn down charts, story pointing and Scrum
Atlassian Jira combined with Agile Boards support work monitoring and control
ceremonies provide artifacts for an appraisal
• CMMI models are all encompassing
– Agile Scrum on its own doesn’t cover all
CMMI process areas
– CMMI provides a framework that supports
an Agile development approach
– LMI’s quality processes and operating
procedures that led to ISO 9001 certification
of LMI’s quality management system
provided a strong starting point for CMMI

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Agile Scrum Board

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Agile Workflows

https://code.lmi.org

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In conclusion:

• Multiple models and methodologies can

complement one another and be implemented
together effectively.
• To implement multiple methodologies, an
organization must analyze them to find the
parts of each methodology that overlap or
support parts of the other methodology, in
order to avoid redundant practices and
processes.
• Most importantly, an organization needs to
fully implement and commit to their chosen
methodologies so that they become an integral
part of the way the organization operates.

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Thank you!

Bibliography:
• “GAO Agile Development and Implementation Guide”
• The Agile Manifesto
http://agilemanifesto.org/
• 12 Agile Principles Blog Post Series by Marc Bless
marcbless.blogspot.com
• “Agile Project Management for Dummies”
Mark C. Layton. 2012.
• “SAFe Reference Guide”
Dean Leffingwell, Alex Yakyma, Richard Knaster, Drew Jemilo, Inbar Oren. 2017.
• “CMMI for Development”
Mary Beth Chrissis, Mike Konrad, Sandy Shrum. Third Ed. 2011.

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CONTACT US

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Contact Us

Margaret Tanner Glover of Excellence in Measurement Technology

• Phone: 773.447.6192
• Email: [email protected]
• Web: excellenceinmeasurement.com

Debra Dennie, LMI Program Manager

• Phone: 210.526.8101
• Email: [email protected]
• Web: lmi.org

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Tysons, VA 22102

[email protected]

703.917.7427

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