I'm just back from SEPG 2007 in Austin, Texas. Unlike last yea (SEPG Tribal Markings) , I didn't blog during the even (Escape from NashVegas) for technical reasons related to the security on uploading to my host ISP box. (See also Beauty of Gaylord Opreyland, Meditating in NashVegas)

For me conferences are mainly social networking opportunities. The content of the conference isn't so important as who is attending. The aggregation effect of a conference to maximize the social networking value determines whether I'll attend. For this reason I will be at the Agile conference again this year even though I'm finding the content of the Agile conference less and less relevant to my own situation.

First I met Paul Nielsen, the Director of the Software Engineering Institute (the big boss). Paul was fascinated with what I'm doing with kanban systems and industrial engineering theory applied to software development. He shared with me that the SEI is looking to align CMMI better with Lean and Six Sigma and that they want to tell a far better story of how to use CMMI in enterprise-wide (organizational level) Lean initiatives.

Next I met Bill Petersen and he repeated the same thing. I personally think this is a very strong idea - in fact I'd been using it for the last 2 years to pitch MSF CMMI at Microsoft Executive Briefings to customers who had a Six Sigma or Lean initiative in their company already. MSF CMMI with the reporting provided in Visual Studio Team Foundation Server has all the enablers for a Six Sigma or Lean initiative and I've published several presentations explaining how to do it. I left Microsoft before I published a full white paper on the topic. Anyway, I offered to help Bill in any way I could to position CMMI in the Lean space. I guess writing that white paper would be a good place to start. huh?

This is me chatting to Mike Konrad on the terrace at the conference center on Thursday morning about our new Kanban system.

Mike has so much experience with CMM and CMMI that he can listen to the anecdotes and immediately determine the maturity level of the behaviors described. He can then add suggestions on how to take it to the next level. Mike suggestions? Process automation to provide better prediction. Better prediction will allow us to improve due date performance on our SLA and to improve the accuracy of our release announcements and allow us to make announcements earlier - improving service to the business by giving them more warning of what is and is not included in each release. Thanks Mike!

Hillel Glazer has been promoting an agile approach to CMMI with his blog and working with clients pursuing a CMMI appraisal with an agile process. Hillel has even worked with a client that made a full deployment of Team System with MSF for CMMI Process Improvement. He reported back to me that it does "almost precisely what it says on the box." Hillel has validated with his client that MSF CMMI delivers on the promise and on its design. This was personally very good news for me. It's always nice to have your work validated in the field.

And here is my friend Clementino Mendonca of Microsoft, explaining MSF for CMMI Process Improvement to a prospective customer on the Microsoft booth at the exhibition. Microsoft have a great product and a great story to tell in the CMMI space. What I'm waiting for now is the first news that a VSTS/MSF customer has achieved a CMMI Level 3 appraisal. I'm hoping that we'll hear that news over the next 6 months. Technorati tag: Agile, David+Anderson,, SEI, SEPG, Mike+Konrad, CMMI