The Road to CMMI: Results of the First Technology Transition Workshop

In May 2001, the Accelerating Software Technology Adoption (ASTA) Initiative of the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) piloted a workshop to support the management of technology transition and to capture feedback from adopters of the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) Product Suite. The workshop, titled "The Road to CMMI: What Works, What's Needed?" served as both a tool for improving the transition of the CMMI Product Suite and as the first pilot of the Technology Transition Workshop (TTW) series. The workshop was a success, generating 75 prioritized recommendations of what works, what doesn't, and what's needed for an organization to successfully transition to the CMMI Product Suite. Feedback was very positive, with participants indicating that the workshop provided beneficial information they could put into practice at their home organizations. Since the workshop, ASTA's findings have been disseminated to the broader CMMI adopter population through the CMMI Technology Conference and User Group held in November 2001, and the on-going series of CMMI Transition Workshops held in conjunction with the National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA). The findings are also available on the TTW Web site. Organizations contemplating the implementation of the CMMI Product Suite, change agents for those organizations, and researchers in technology transition and adoption will be interested in this report.