CMMI 365 has four detail views:

• Gap Analysis score by week
• Team scores by week
• Identify documents as Objective Evidence
• Reference for the selected CMMI Practice

The Appraisal Preparation Team scores the status of each CMMI Practice in two ways. First, team member(s) can perform a weekly "Gap Analysis" to arrive at a Gap Analysis score. Second, team member(s) can simply enter a "Team Score" that reflects their best estimate for their appraisal readiness. As the Appraisal Preparation team addresses deficiencies, the score for each CMMI Practice moves from 0 to 100.

Gap Analysis

Most Appraisal Preparation Teams perform a full Gap Analysis of all CMMI Practices shortly after their project kickoff. After that, team members perform Gap Analysis infrequently, perhaps once a month or at the request of the Appraisal executive sponsors.

Team Scoring

The second way to score each CMMI Practice is called Team Scoring. In parallel to Gap Analysis, Appraisal Preparation Team members simply use their best judgement and enter a weekly Team Score. Based on their best estimates, Team Scores for each CMMI Practice move from 0 to 100 as the Appraisal Preparation Team collects documentation, updates business processes, and assures that their business process comply with CMMI best-practice guidance.

Objective Evidence

What's a CMMI appraisal without lots of documentation? The real magic of CMMI 365 is the ability to "tag" documents to specific CMMI Practices. This happens in the web page for Objective Evidence Evaluation. As documents are identified and associated with specific CMMI Practices, Appraisal Preparation team members enter their comments to explain why the document is appropriate for review during the upcoming CMMI appraisal. Documents are uploaded to the SharePoint document repository once then "tagged" or related to one or more CMMI Practices.

Evaluating Organizational Processes

GOV Governance and II Implementation Infrastructure are evaluated slightly differently. These CMMI Practice Areas are associated with Organizational Processes. When CMMI Practices for GOV & II are evaluated, the evaluation is done relative to specific Organizational Processes.

• CMMI 365 supports zero to 20 Organizational Processes per Appraisal.
• Appraisals are configured for one-to-many Projects.
• And, finally, Projects are associated with zero to 20 Organizational Processes. CMMI 365 is highly aligned with the CMMI V2.0 model. Per the Appraisal Plan, some Organizational Processes are "in-scope" for a Project, some are not.

When the Detail web page is shown for any of the GOV or II CMMI Practices, an additional drop-down selection is available to choose the Organizational Process being evaluated.

CMMI V2.0 Model Reference

Each CMMI Practice is supported by reference information, notes and guidance. This material is provided by the CMMI subject matter experts at Compliance Power 365 to help guide the efforts of the Appraisal Preparation Team members. The guidance for each CMMI Practice is cross-referenced to example templates and example documents that are automatically included with CMMI 365. Note: CMMI 365 provides reference information and example documents, but this is not a substitute for direct access to the official CMMI V2.0 model viewer available from the CMMI Institute. If your company is pursuing CMMI certification, then be sure you have a subscription and access to the CMMI V2.0 model viewer.

Teams Channels

Each Appraisal Preparation Team can configure Channels within Teams to suit their needs.  At a minimum, we usually suggest two or three channels to accommodate "mini-groups" of two and three people. For example, some team members might be assigned to prepare CMMI Development Practice Areas.  A few other team members might focus on CMMI for Services. The Channels in the example below are:  Core CMMI (for the standard CMMI Practice Areas), DEV mini-group, SVC mini-group, and a Channel for the Quality Managers and team leads who are responsible for coordinating the team.

The SharePoint Document Repository for the CMMI Appraisal

Over time, the Appraisal Preparation Team can collect hundreds of documents in support of the upcoming CMMI appraisal.   This is where team members go to add the documents to SharePoint.

The team lead should take care to organize a meaningful taxonomy of sub-directories.  Later in the process, team members will review and evaluate every document added to the SharePoint repository.  The review process is carried out on the CMMI 365 Objective Evidence Evaluation web page.

Hooray! Here's the CMMI 365 application shown within Microsoft Teams

This is where team members spend a fair amount of time. CMMI 365 is used to score CMMI Practices and evaluate documentation for Objective Evidence.

Task Management with Microsoft Planner

Microsoft Planner is built in to Microsoft Teams. It's easy to use and is usually good enough to help most Teams keep track of their to-do tasks.

We really like Microsoft Teams for video conferencing!

Microsoft took an established product, Skype for Business, and rolled it into Microsoft Teams. Now we have a built-in video conferencing tool within Teams.

Example use case:  every morning, team members go to Teams and catch up on Posts in the General Channel.  At 9:00 am, someone clicks on the video icon and starts a group meeting. All other team members click on the link displayed on the General Channel and join the video conference for the daily standup meeting. During the conversation, team members move throughout Teams to see open to-do tasks, review newly uploaded files, and even walk through CMMI 365 pages for selected CMMI Practices. It's all done on-line with zero ambiguity and zero wasted effort.

Your company can be up and running on CMMI 365 in one day!

The CMMI 365 system is available to companies who subscribe to Microsoft 365.

Licensing of Microsoft 365 can be very confusing. We'll answer questions and help sort out the requirements for your company to host CMMI 365 on your own Microsoft 365 tenant. The important take-away is that the CMMI 365 system is installed on your company's Microsoft 365 tenant. Once installed on your tenant, Compliance Power 365 provides regular updates and delivers superior support but Compliance Power 365 does not have access to your Microsoft tenant (i.e., your OneDrive, your SharePoint, your Teams, etc.).

Licensing:

• Companies start with a 12-month, pre-paid CMMI 365 subscription of $440 per month. ($5,280 for 12 months)
• After 12 months, the CMMI 365 subscription drops to $140 per month. Subscriptions are renewed in pre-paid, 12 month increments. ($1,680 for 12 months)

Technical details:

1. At a minimum, your company must have a Microsoft 365 subscription that includes PowerApps. Most common is the E3 enterprise subscription. It is also common for companies to have a less expense Microsoft 365 subscription and enroll in the add-on PowerApps per Plan license at $10.00 per user per month.  Check with your Microsoft  365 system administrator and confirm your team has access to PowerApps, Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, and Power Automate.
2. The good news: the CMMI 365 system does not require premium connectors. CMMI 365 relies only on SharePoint and PowerApps. Premium connectors to services such as SQL Server or Microsoft CDS Common Data Services are not used. This results in lower licensing costs paid to Microsoft.
3. PowerApps users are granted "use only" privileges on CMMI 365.  Your users are not permitted to alter the application or adjust privileges for other users.
4. Compliance Power 365 will coordinate with your Microsoft 365 system administrator to install the CMMI 365 system. We'll work with the system administrator via video conference as the software is installed. At no time do we need or have access to your environment. This is important to Federal contractors and those concerned with good cyber security hygiene.
5. Additional user accounts to your Microsoft 365 environment can be granted, as necessary, to accommodate 3rd party, external consultants and the CMMI Lead Appraiser. The assignment of user accounts to Microsoft 365 is the responsibility of your Microsoft 365 system administrator.
6. How about using SharePoint for the user experience?  Yes, CMMI 365 can be embedded within a web part on a SharePoint web page. Users can navigate to a SharePoint web page and interact with the CMMI 365 system. It's possible to use CMMI 365 in this way but users will not have the robust Microsoft Teams experience to track tasks and collaborate with other team members.

Start-up Time Line:

1. Pre-Sale demonstration:  Please call to arrange an on-line video conference where we can walk through the operation of CMMI 365. We love demos.

2. Commit: We'll work with you and answer all questions. Then we'll provide a firm price quotation. Get the green light and purchase a subscription to CMMI 365.
• CMMI 365 is licensed through a simple, one-page Contract. The Contract lists the software licensing terms, the names and addresses of our respective companies, and has an area where executive managers can sign the document.
• In addition to the Contract, we have a Terms of Service document that details our policies for acceptable use, security, intellectual property, termination, indemnification, exclusion of warranties, and limitations of liability. Please see the Terms of Service document which complements the standard Contract.

3. System Installation:
• Compliance Power 365 will designate one of our team members as your single point-of-contact. This will be your CMMI 365 account representative.
• Your company will designate a system administration contact, a CMMI team lead contact from your internal Appraisal Preparation Team, and an executive management contact.
• We'll work with your Microsoft 365 system administrator to install and test the CMMI 365 system on your Microsoft 365 tenant.

4. Kick-off: Compliance Power 365 will host a one hour on-line training session. We'll cover all features of CMMI 365. But we're also CMMI V2.0 subject matter experts, not just technical experts, so we can cover additional topics relevant to your company. Perhaps you want to discuss your approach to preparing for the appraisal, or how to best leverage the suite of great tools provided by Microsoft 365. We also have deep contacts with CMMI V2.0 Lead Appraisers and other consultants who can offer value-added services.

5. Weekly check-in: Your CMMI 365 account representative will check-in with your CMMI team lead no less than once a week for the first 4 weeks. It might be appropriate for the CMMI 365 account representative to join the Appraisal Preparation Team daily stand-up meeting. Or, the CMMI 365 account representative can deliver support via video training sessions. Support will be provided however desired. We estimate approximately 8 hours of support is necessary during the first 4 weeks.

We're happy to provide a written price quote for additional consulting services to support your internal Appraisal Preparation Team. We've helped dozens of companies prepare for their CMMI Maturity Level 3 appraisals.

Please call to discuss your needs as you start on your path to CMMI certification.