Alittle back slapping here:
Some of you might be familiar with the
Carnegie Mellon SEI/CMMI process improvement especially if you work in the IT business.
3 years ago I began a journey where the group I work for at Boeing had no test plan for the software we support, and an old fart that just said "go test" and some word documents that recorded test results. He was laid off in 2003 (30+ years and spent 7 out of 8 hours a day playing solitaire on Windows) and I volunteered to take over that job because I always felt "it could be done better".
During that 3 years I went back to school, got my Masters cert in PM, and got my Project Management Professional cert (PMP). I also created many Macroscope test plans, started coordinating the tests with schedules, linked test books to the schedule, captured the results in various Macroscope documents (Issues logs, P770s Global Test Results, and Lessons Learned artifacts), coordinated with external groups that we needed for test environments and created a high level M036 Work Breakdown Structure to capture all the testing that our group does. The journey to Level 3 SEI/CMMI was well underway during this 3 years and I've been leading a team of 5 Project Managers to capture all the Level 3 activities with artifacts since last year.
Today I was asked to join a dry run audit (my day off) and accepted the 2 hour meeting invitation (virtual). We were given a dry run audit of "Level 3 Certification" before our real audit this summer. We not only passed with flying colors, but I was told that my Test Plans for our group is being institutionalized in IT groups in our business unit!!! I was flabbergasted! I was wondering why so many PM's from other IT groups were coming to me over the past 6 months and picking my brain...today I found out why.
No big announcement, no "atta boy" toys (though I've gotten plenty in the past 7 years since I started working in IT) but when its announced by a CMMI auditor with a PHD in front of your boss, it gives you a special feeling that all the hard work that one puts in day in and day out finally comes to apogee.
On cloud 9 today!
