The Dreaded Slow-Roll

 

Building on last week’s blog, where I discussed the insightful framework posited by Carnegie Melon University’s Software Engineering Institute’s Capability Maturity Model®, I pointed out that the CMM®, while asserting the five levels that organizations go through when attempting to advance a given capability, didn’t do as good a job of showing how the organization advances from level to level. One book on this topic by Kim Caputo, CMM Implementation Guide; Implementing Software Process Improvement (Addison-Wesely Professional, 1998) discussed six steps that should take place in-between each CMM® level:

1.      You introduce the nature of the capability improvement to the macro organization,

2.      and then scope out the exact nature of the participant’s activities with respect to the capability advancement.

3.      Launch a pilot project, and (presumably) bring it in on-time, on-budget.

4.      Widespread group assimilation follows the pilot project,

5.      then institutionalization takes place,

6.      followed by an audit to see if you really have achieved the next level.

Now, Ms. Caputo readily admits that there is, in her words, a “chasm” in-between steps 3 and 4, with devastating results. If widespread group assimilation does not take place following the successful completion of the pilot project, the implementation team is forced to start over again, and re-introduce the capability being sought, re-scope out requirements for the actual participants, etcetera, etcetera. But here’s the catch – the implementation team only has two, maybe three bites at this apple before the organization just gets tired of hearing about the need for the particular capability enhancement, and tunes you out.

If I understand Ms. Caputo’s points correctly (and I believe I do), she councils enhanced communications among the implementation team members and those who decline to participate. By drawing out their unstated or poorly-stated reservations, she believes that the parts of the organization that are attempting to avoid contributing to the implementation effort can be persuaded to change their minds, and contribute. Frankly, I don’t agree – I’ve always felt the communications aficionados wildly overstated their techniques’ abilities to improve management.  It was during this time, when I was attempting to solve the problem of members of the macro organization electing not to engage to the extent needed for a successful implementation (a behavior Ms. Caputo calls “the silent veto”), that I had a key conversation with Bud Baker.

Bud Baker is a professor and the Chair of the Department of Management and International Business at Wright State University. However, before he got his high-falutin’ title, he was, like me, a columnist for PMNetwork magazine. Those were PMNetwork’s halcyon days, when the monthly columnist lineup included people like Professor Baker, Neil Whitten, John Sullivan, Paul Dinsmore, Deborah Bigelow, and me (needless to say – but I’ll say it anyway – PMNetwork’s columnist lineup is nowhere near this level of talent today, except maybe when Bud sends in some of his work). While wrestling with this crossing-the-gap issue, I spoke with Bud, who said the act of withholding the participation level needed to perform a given implementation was called “the slow roll” from his days of doing project management consulting for the United States Department of Defense. The organization targeted for the enhanced capability knew that there was a finite amount of energy behind the push for improvement and, if they could participate just enough to see the overall effort lose steam, they would be able to go on doing their jobs the way they had been, without appearing to be the reason the sought-after improvement effort failed. It was both insidious and perfectly predictable.

So, what is the solution to overcoming the dreaded Slow-Roll? The answer comes from a highly analogous situation from Game Theory, and is…

…coming next week (yeah, I know this is the second week in a row I finished with a who-shot-J.R.-style cliff-hanger, but it is a rather complex problem).