Trivia Question: Name this 1991 song about playing music (performance) and the band that sang it. (This should be an easy one!)
Now look at them yo-yo's that's the way you do it
You play the guitar on the MTV
That ain't workin' that's the way you do it
Money for nothin' and your chicks for free
Now that ain't workin' that's the way you do it
Lemme tell ya them guys ain't dumb
Maybe get a blister on your little finger
Maybe get a blister on your thumb
We gotta install microwave ovens
Custom kitchen deliveries
We gotta move these refrigerators
We gotta move these color TV's
Trivia Rules: Use your brains, memory and reasoning to figure these out vs. Google, IMDB, etc.
Being a musician myself (jazz and classical bass trombonist), I was thinking about how playing music well during a concert is VERY similar to developing new software or system or service. This musical or theatrical metaphor has many similarities with modern business performance. In fact, the parallels are very obvious.
For example, there are a few KEY (pun intended) elements needed to perform well, one of which is capability and the other is practice. You actually have to know HOW to play the instrument, in tune, and read music (capability), but in order to do your best, you have to practice (intention, preparation and planning). But another important element, perhaps the most important, is the actual performance itself. And when you consider LIVE performance, all of these elements have to be combined together in order to achieve a good performance. It can be a daunting and even scary situation to perform live in front of an audience. The performance has to happen in real-time; there are no go-backs to fix mistakes; just the potential to try to do better at the next performance, assuming the mistakes weren’t so bad as to lead to canceling the show. For example, with the introduction of DevOps/DevSecOps to the development life cycle – this is VERY similar to the “delivery” of a live performance event – playing well or playing badly with lots of “clams” (missed notes/mistakes in jazz) – both the good and bad outcomes are immediate and often very apparent.
And let’s face the hard truth – without capability or the discipline of practice, the performance is inevitably going to suffer. This is sometimes painfully true for a solo performance because there is no place to hide even a single mistake, but it’s equally important for an ensemble, cast, band or orchestra. Practice and capability also enable the performance results to be SCALABLE (another musical pun) to a cast, band or orchestra. Lack of practice and capability means that there are more clams, or more missed lines by more actors. Consistent practice and rehearsals improve and hone each performer’s capabilities, both individually and collectively, so that each person and each section can focus on delivering their part of the performance to the best level achievable, hopefully delighting their audiences. But practice (planning and preparation) and capability (ability to play the instrument correctly) do NOT guarantee a great performance – it just means it’s more likely to happen than without it. There are many reasons why a common phrase in business is “make sure we’re all on the same sheet of music.” And the above principles are true no matter what type of performance you’re talking about – be it music, dance, theater, etc. Practice and capability and performance are all inextricably linked in music, theater, dance and, yes, in business.
And like a live performance, automated development and services systems such as DevSecOps can mean that errors and defects are introduced live to users just as fast as the new code. Incorporating automated development processes such as Robotic Process Automation (RPA) also means that the performance is effectively real-time. If the RPA processes introduce an error in a manufacturing line, that error is then propagated to every product made in that line until the error is detected, fixed and remedied – assuming a human or machine is actually tasked to do that monitoring.
So, how do we measure a good musical or theatrical performance? There are key artifacts such as a score or script, identifying the right (and type of) players and actors, recording the right notes, writing the right dialogue or lines in the script. Then there are the composition and orchestration processes, which include many other aspects (product/solution components), such as the selected number of and types of instruments, the type of player, the right volume, right timing, right lines, staging, etc., (product design) that lay out the requirements, specifications, objectives and measures for the performance, and its expected outcome and themes. The score or the script lay out the boundaries of what will get performed and to a large degree how it will be performed – and by which actor or section or soloist, and when, and even how it’s to be delivered (product integration). Trading off lines from one actor to another, or the timing and phrasing of the musical score, tells the performers when to play their part in a musical theme and when it’s time to hand that theme off to another section to play (interfaces and integration). Additionally, there are expectations set by the producers and directors (senior management) for the performance (business results).
It’s possible to play a piece of music 100% technically correct but for it to still not be a good or moving performance. But it does make one wonder why a lot of organizations and companies assume that simply complying to a regulatory or framework’s requirements ensures good business performance. That’s akin to saying that if you can read music, you will get a good outcome, which is simply not true. The data on this is very clear; compliance does NOT equate to performance. And unfortunately, most organizations don’t know or accept this simple fact or learn this lesson. And it’s NEVER “money for nothin” – it takes hard work and discipline. And the dire straits truth of it – even with all the preparation, study and practice, it’s still possible to have a performance that isn’t stellar, but at that point, if the performers do all they train and practice to do, from the moment of the performance’s start to the end, the ultimate outcome is handed directly and exclusively to the audience (customers).
Echoing the very positive and promising results from the FDA’s VIP/MDDAP effort (spoiler alert for the upcoming part 2 of this blog) which is based on CMMI V2.0, the first ~100 organizations that adopted CMMI V2.0 in 2019 showed some pretty amazing results in our recently published CMMI V2.0 Performance Report Summary.
These appraised organizations reported their “before and after” improvement objectives (a total of 735 objectives across the 95 organizations appraised) in the required CMMI V2.0 Performance Report, with an astounding ≈70% achievement success rate for their accomplished improvement objectives (plus an additional 20% on track to achieve), for a total of 90% across key areas such as quality, cost and schedule performance, productivity and more.
Each of these results were identified and achieved by the organizations being appraised against CMMI V2.0, with the resulting performance improvements independently verified by CMMI Appraisal teams.
Consider this our intermission. Stay tuned for this second act of this performance – OK, blog post – in the near future, when we will delve into desired performance outcomes in greater detail.