By now, you have hopefully bought into the idea that CMMI-based process improvement, which is the development and delivery of a process system, can and should be managed as a systems delivery project. So, if CMMI implementation is a project, then there is no logical reason why it cannot be estimated and planned just as you would a software or systems project. This section will give you some basic information on how to go about planning your CMMI process improvement project.

Before you start process improvement project planning, banish from your head any thoughts you may have that your organization is the first and only organization to ever try to implement CMMI-based improvements. Then banish from your head the thought that your organization is so unique that its CMMI implementation will have to be radically different from the approach others have taken. Remember, boldly go where everyone has gone before.

There is plenty of existing historical data from other people s process improvement efforts on which you could base realistic estimates. There are lots of people willing to share with you (this book, for example) their experiences and the lessons they learned in their own process efforts. Go to a SEPG conference and just hang out in the bar. People love to tell their CMM/CMMI war stories and sometimes it gets really old listening to them. But you know what? You really can learn from other people s experiences and you can use those experiences by...