Beyond Maturity

Since the development of the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) by the Carnegie Mellon University Software Institute (SEI) and the US Air Force, every man and their dog have come up with their own maturity index's that are essentially the same as or close to the CMMI.

My premise is that there must be something beyond a simple assessment of a management process and I think that is the actualisation of that management process.  The idea is to not measure the theoretical effectiveness the organisation's management process but to measure how productive and effective is the output of the management process. ie the value of rapid actualisation.

 I think this draws some broad similarities to the ISO System Engineering, Design for Six Sigma, AGILE, CMMI and my own rapid value actualisation method.

ISO 15288	Six Sigma	AGILE	Capability Maturity Model Assessment	Rapid Value Actualisation
Stakeholder Requirements Definition Process (Clause 6.4.1) Requirements Analysis Process (Clause 6.4.2)	Define	Discovery	Initial	Benefits Identification/ Earned Value Framework
Architectural Design Process (Clause 6.4.3)	Measure	Design	Managed	Model Based Design
Implementation Process (Clause 6.4.4) Integration Process (Clause 6.4.5) Verification Process (Clause 6.4.6)	Analyse	Develop	Process Defined	Rapid Prototyping/ Initial Benefits/EVM
Transition Process (Clause 6.4.7) Validation Process (Clause 6.4.8)	Design	Integrate & Test	Quantitatively Managed	Change Management
Operation Process (Clause 6.4.9) Maintenance Process (Clause 6.4.10) Disposal Process (Clause 6.4.11)	Verify	Release	Optimised	Application Implementation/ Benefits Realisation

I would have liked to have worked Prince2 into the above table but its more a management framework to be overlaid onto a product development cycle. This article has the best view I have seen of the seven Prince2 Management processes.

Although this article does have a good view on overlaying Prince2 onto a project/product development process.

Project Management Applications

I need an online, free, colaborative tool for project management. I have reviewed what is available from a list on wikipedia. Initially all I wanted was something easy to share a project plan but what it has done has made me rethink what project management software is all about.

I have long held the opinion that Gantt charts are only pretty drawings that every project seems to require and are just as quickly discarded as the project comences. What is requires is a document that is more engaging and dynamic.

From the list the following have jumped out for not much reason at all appart from their relative completeness and some unique features that I think make them interesting for further review.

OpenWorkbench (obw.1.1.6.exe) - is a stand alone app that I have used before. It appears to be going through some sort of update as the owner CA has taken down the app's website. It can still be found on wikipedia and the exe on the web (and 1.1.4 on SF). Cant say I used it much and there are issues with round trips to MS Project and only supports 2003+ xml based project files for export.

OpenProject - is a nice stand alone that has a very basic interface. I am a bit more inclined to use it because f this reason. Still has issues with round trips to MS Project and only supports 2003+ xml based project files for export.

OpenERP - seeing this app listed in a project planning software list really made me start to think left field in what I need. Integrating planning into the project execution at an enterprise level is really what is

Endeavour - is really right out there with a spectifically targetted industry and functionality required to execute and manage the required tasks. Specifially agile based software development, user requirements, functional planning and task execution.

phpGroupWare - looks like an interesting group of functionality that could be implement on a colaboration portal. Not sure what to do with it but I guess something will come up.