Acknowledgments

We’d like to thank the many people who have influenced our ideas, philosophies, writing, and practice.

In particular, SuZ would like to acknowledge Eileen Forrester, whose passion for researching technology transition methods spurred me in directions I would never have gone on my own; Roger Bate, whom I have always respected and enjoyed working with, and whose trust in me to lead the Systems Engineering CMM project started me on a whole new path in my career journey; Chuck Myers, my perennial tutorial partner, whose creativity and depth of insight never cease to amaze me; Mike Konrad, who allowed me many growth opportunities to explore the CMMs space and to try new approaches, even when he wasn’t sure they would work; Mark Paulk, who was the one who moved me from complaining about maturity models to actually working on and improving them; Eamonn McGuinness, who allowed me much freedom in experimenting with process improvement techniques in a very small organization; Agapi Svolou, whose continual enthusiasm for my ideas and techniques humbles and inspires me; John Foreman, who allowed me to explore many of my adoption ideas with small companies on the TIDE project; Sandra Cepeda, my steadfast partner in consulting on the Huntsville CMMI pilots, who never tried to turn me into an appraiser (much as she wanted to); Bill Craig, whose sponsorship of the CMMI Huntsville pilots led to many of the insights shared herein.

Bill Peterson, whose continual support of my many ideas in the process improvement area and of me personally is unparalleled; Watts Humphrey, whose passion to improve the outcomes and practices of software engineers and whose continual willingness to share his knowledge and perspectives give me hope for the future of the software engineering discipline; Caroline Graettinger, who had no idea what she was getting when she hired me back into the Software Engineering Institute (SEI), yet has never once complained; Jerry Weinberg, whose coaching and mentoring at critical points throughout my career have enabled the “writing side” of me to come out; all the participants in the 2004 Weinberg Writer’s Workshop, whose encouragement and productive criticism gave me the desire to write prose again; the participants of Consultant’s Camp, whose many insights have influenced and guided me in so many directions none of us would expect; and my family, the Poehlman clan, whose love and support has never failed, no matter how weird I’ve gotten!

Rich would like to particularly mention Jim Armstrong, Hillary Davidson, Rich McCabe, Ken Nidiffer, Bill Smith, and Alex Stall of the Systems and Software Consortium who, whether they knew it or not, acted as sounding boards for much of this material; Mark Schaeffer of the U.S. Department of Defense, who challenged the community to develop CMMI in the first place; Roger Bate, Mike Phillips, Bob Rassa, Hal Wilson, the CMMI Steering Group, and the CMMI teams that have struggled to make the model useful and extensible while remaining stable enough for wide adoption; Kristen Baldwin and the Tri-Service Assessment Initiative team for their work in focusing on causal chains in evaluating programs in vitro.

Vic Basili, Kathleen Dangle, and Michelle Shaw of the Fraunhofer Center at the University of Maryland, who were pioneers in bringing maturity models to smaller organizations; Tim Kasse, who renewed my confidence in the process improvement support industry with his fervent, yet rational, approach to process consulting; Alistair Cockburn, who truly understands the role of communication and humbles me with his eclectic intellect; Don Reifer for his phenomenal support in nearly everything I do; and Barry Boehm, my partner in investigating the agile world, for his insight and wisdom into seeing beyond the methods and into the future.

And from both of us, immeasurable thanks to Michael and Jo, our partners in life and love, whose patience and support during the process of writing this book were key to its completion. There are no words that can sufficiently thank them for their contributions. We love you more than you know.

SuZ Garcia
Rich Turner
September 2006

Illustration from The Travels of Marco Polo by Witold Gordon (1885–1968)