1. What is Senior Management Commitment ?
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What is Senior Management Commitment ?
Adapted from: Sarah Sheard, Software Productivity Consortium.

2. Agenda 5 Principles Establish a Common Vision Encourage Other Managers
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Agenda
5 Principles
Establish a Common Vision
Encourage Other Managers
Support the Process Group
Provide Resources
Address Organizational Incompetence
October 1, 2017

3. Why are senior managers important for PI ?
They set the tone
They commit resources
They allocate priorities
They model the new ‘behaviour’
They must insist on change at the top levels
They must maintain attention over long term
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4. 1. Establish a Common Vision
Establish a common vision of an improved organization
What the objectives are
Improve quality, productivity, satisfaction, …
What the organization will look like when they have been achieved
Becoming a level 3 organization does not mean much to many employees
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5. 1. Provide a Vision Do Communicate how PI initiatives work together
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1. Provide a Vision Do
Communicate how PI initiatives work together
Focus on quality, effectiveness, predictability, and satisfaction; levels are indicators of success
Attribute problems to process ineffectiveness
Establish reasonable priorities
Don’t
Expect practitioners to figure it out
“We must achieve Level 3 by December”
Blame the people performing the process
Demand that programs satisfy conflicting priorities
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6. 2. Encourage Other Managers
Encourage Other Managers to take Process Improvement Seriously
Lead by example
Walk the talk
Overcome resistance
Remove managers who refuse to change
Put PI objectives into the goals of every related manager
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7. 2. Convince Other Managers
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2. Convince Other Managers Do
Apply PI to yourself
Have programs report PI status against goals
Tell good and bad news
Don’t
“My work is an exception”
Only the process group provides PI status
Deny bad news
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8. 3. Support the Process Group
Support Process group in word and deed (i.e. action)
Management must act in accordance with the stated goals
Actions talk louder than words !
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9. 3. Support the Process Group
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3. Support the Process Group
Don’t
Put the team in substandard rooms and ask them not to bother the real workers
“Just do it, don’t bother me with problems.”
Let the team ‘go around’ the process Do
Publicize support with posters, announcements, and continued attention
Act on bad news from process group
When customer wants to push, explain why the process must be followed
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10. 4. Provide Resources In addition to investments in money, it requires:
time to determine the needed changes
time to implement change
e.g. document and deploy (e.g. training)
time to ensure that changes have taken hold
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11. 10/1/2017
4. Provide Resources Do
Involve the ones who will perform the new processes
Allocate 2-3% of engineering staff
Train the process group in process engineering
Staff with senior and respected people
Don’t
Minimize the hours and number of people involved
Allocate money only for assessments
“Senior people ought to know engineering”
Staff with people you can’t employ on projects
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12. 5. Address Organizational Incompetence
Based on Chris Argyris’s work
2000: Flawed Advice and the Management Trap
Managers win by avoiding the potentially embarrassing or threatening
Protects the organization from any substantial change
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13. 5. Address Organizational Incompetence
Examples of side-stepping and face saving behaviour:
Rosy schedule syndrome
Insisting on schedules that are not realistic
Two schedules
One to show to their boss
The real schedule
Shoot the messenger
People fear repercussion for telling the truth
No dirty laundry
Making meetings into a ‘show’ where only safe topics can be discussed
Embarrassing issues are not discussed
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14. 5. Address Organizational Incompetence (cont’d)
Test attributions, including own
What do others say or do that make you think that?
Address what is potentially embarrassing and threatening
Require differences to be discussed in public, not off line
This avoids making a mockery of meetings
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15. Summary Replace trying to win with trying to make the organization win
You must make change possible
Address what is real, what are real schedules, what are roadblocks, what is possible, measurable, and repeatable
Envision the new organization and then lead the charge there
October 1, 2017