Books about Capabilities from Amazon.com

CMMI® (Capability Maturity Model® Integration) describes best practices for the development and maintenance of products and services across their entire lifecycle. By integrating essential bodies of knowledge, CMMI provides a single, comprehensive framework for organizations to assess their development and maintenance processes, implement improvements, and measure progress.

This book is a definitive reference for the most current release of CMMI (version 1.2). In the new edition, the authors have added tips, hints, and cross-references in the margins (in color) throughout the process areas to help you better understand, apply, and find more information about the content of the process areas. The book also now includes brief, insightful perspectives on CMMI written by people influential in the model’s creation, development, and transition. A new case study from Raytheon illustrates a real-world application of the model to a services organization. Whether you are new to CMMI or familiar with an earlier version, if you need to know about, evaluate, or put the latest version of CMMI into practice, this book is an essential resource.

The book is divided into three parts.

Part I offers the broad view of CMMI, beginning with basic concepts of process improvement. It describes the process areas, their components, and their relationships to each other. It explains the model’s two representations as well as paths to the adoption and use of CMMI for process improvement and benchmarking.

Part II, the bulk of the book, details the generic goals and practices and the twenty-two process areas now comprising CMMI. The process areas are organized alphabetically by acronym for easy look-up. Each chapter includes goals, best practices, and examples for a particular process area. The two CMMI representations are described so that you will easily see their similarities and differences and thereby be better able to choose the right approach for your organization.

Part III contains several useful resources, including CMMI-related references, acronym definitions, a glossary of terms, and an index.

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Price: $46.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]

"This book is the definitive guide for SAP NetWeaver BI professionals Based on their extraordinary expertise with the product, the authors provide deep insights about key innovations in the areas of user experience, query performance, integrated planning, and enterprise-wide data warehousing."
—Stefan Sigg, Vice President, SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence

The long-anticipated publication of this second edition reflects the growing success of SAP NetWeaver as well as the various Business Intelligence (BI) capabilities that are embedded with SAP BW version 7.0. Written by SAP insiders, this comprehensive guide takes into account the ever-changing features, functionality, and toolsets of SAP NetWeaver to bring you the most updated information on how to use SAP BW to design, build, deploy, populate, access, analyze, present, and administer data. You'll discover the options that are available in SAP NetWeaver and uncover a new means to improve business performance.

This book reflects the process an organization goes through during an implementation of the software. The authors begin with an introduction to BI and SAP NetWeaver and quickly progress to information modeling and enterprise data warehouse concepts. You'll learn how to access and deliver meaningful analytic information to the organization, as well as perform integrated planning functions. Finally, the authors share invaluable insight on warehouse administration, performance, and security.

With more than 50 percent new or revised material, this second edition of Mastering the SAP Business Information Warehouse shows you how to:

• Extract data from online transaction processing systems
• Store transformed data in a way that best supports reporting and analysis
• Use the various Business Explorer tools such as BEx Report Designer, BEx Analyzer, BEx Broadcaster, and BEx Web Application Designer
• Schedule, monitor, troubleshoot, and archive data loads

The companion Web site contains sample chapters in Wiki format and the authors' blog where readers may enter discussions about the book and SAP.

Wiley Technology Publishing Timely. Practical. Reliable.

Visit our Web site at www.wiley.com/compbooks/

Visit the companion Web site at www.wiley.com/compbooks/mcdonald

The companion Web site contains the sample code presented in the text of the book, plus implementation templates..
Price: $41.20 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Praise for CMMI® Survival Guide

"Traveling down the CMMI road can be difficult and time-consuming Garcia and Turner have given us a practical roadmap that addresses the key points to learn as well as the many potholes to avoid. Their Survival Guide is a most valuable resource for the journey. It will help immeasurably in achieving the process improvement that you seek."

—Dr. Howard Eisner, Distinguished Research Professor, George Washington University

"Helps you get to the 'red meat' of the CMMI quickly and with minimum pain."

—Donald J. Reifer, President, Reifer Consultants, Inc.

"The best words I can offer potential readers is that you must have this book, not on your shelf, but with you for repeated reading to glean new ideas or reinforce old ones you gained from the past readings. If you have ever been directly involved in a process improvement initiative or if you are starting one, this book can only help you to do a better job. And while [the authors] may not have written this book explicitly for experienced consultants, I found it a great reference even for those of us who helped start this industry, because it provides clear and useful answers to those tough questions we are asked all of the time."

—Tim Kasse, CEO and Principal Consultant, Kasse Initiatives LLC

"This book contains practical (working) tips for the 'getting started' phase of process improvement, which is the hardest one in the road to improving one's processes."

—Agapi Svolou, Principal of Alexanna, LLC, and SEI CMMI Transition Partner

"The authors have done an outstanding job in providing guidance for process improvement from a practical perspective. Instead of focusing on a single technique or approach, they have provided a variety of methods for process improvement implementation and have framed their discussion with rich context from lessons learned. The concepts described in this book will be useful to both those starting CMMI implementations and to those who are well into their journey but are still looking for ways to lessen the pain and provide value-added improvements. Reading the book is like being in the audience during a live presentation by SuZ and Rich—they wrote the book as they would present the information to a live audience."

—Bill Craig, Director, Software Engineering Directorate, AMRDEC, RDECOM

"I have been involved in process improvement since the early 90's and many of the mistakes that I made could have been prevented if this book had been available then."

—Claude Y. Laporte, Professor, ETS Universite du Quebec

"Primarily, the book is practical. The guidance presented is geared toward someone who is not exactly sure why they need process improvement, but is presented with the fact that they must do it. Very often these are smaller organizations, with limited resources, and uncertain support from above. As I read the book, I thought almost immediately of a couple of organizations with which I am familiar who could use this kind of tutelage. There are real, and useful, techniques in this book that I believe can help these kinds of organizations prioritize and establish reasonable plans for improving the processes in the organization. I also like the sidebars and personal observations. Discussions of experience can really help organizations through the various pitfalls that are part of developing and deploying processes. It makes the book more of a 'real life' guide, and not a theoretical exercise. Finally, the book is an enjoyable read. The conversational style of the book (and the humor) make it much easier to read than many of the books I have read in the past."

—Alexander Stall, Principal Process Improvement Engineer, Systems and Software Consortium

The CMMI provides a framework for process improvement spanning the life cycle of a product or service, from conception through delivery and maintenance. Widely and beneficially adopted around the world, the size and apparent complexity of the framework have nonetheless been daunting to some organizations. That need not be so. With a proper guide to help navigate around unknown dangers, potential pitfalls, and false paths, you too, can realize substantial business value from a successful CMMI implementation. This book is such a guide, full of the real-life examples to ease your way, and written in a lighter style to ease your reading.

The CMMI® Survival Guide is an effective resource for multiple readerships. If you are just now considering a process improvement program, with the CMMI among your options, the authors' discussion of relevant issues will enhance your business case right from the start. If you have already decided to implement the CMMI, the authors' practical knowledge will help you make the most of your efforts. Even if you are well into a CMMI implementation, but are lost, stuck, or going around in circles, the authors' valuable advice will help you regain your direction.

If you work in a smaller or resource-strapped organization, you will particularly benefit from the authors' description of alternative paths to process improvement—approaches that are more incremental or agile, and less intensive, than you might imagine for a CMMI implementation. The authors draw on their extensive experience working with diverse organizations, and on the CMMI tools, techniques, and templates developed for those organizations.

Whatever your background or need, the CMMI® Survival Guide will help you survey the CMMI territory, consult possible road maps, learn from other CMMI explorers, weigh the benefits of hiring a living guide, and even consider whether the trip is right for you.

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Price: $31.99 [Notify me when price goes down.]

"In this book, I have found answers to key questions and misconceptions about the relationship between Six Sigma and the Capability Maturity Model Integration [CMMI]....Among my key takeaways is that the relationship between Six Sigma and CMMI exemplifies one of the principles of S4/IEE: CMMI provides process infrastructure that is needed to support a successful Six Sigma strategy."

—Forrest W. Breyfogle III, CEO, Smarter Solutions, Inc.

"Finally, a book that bridges the software and hardware process tool set. To date, there have been hardware and software engineers who for one reason or another have not communicated their process methods. And so, myths formed that convinced the hardware community that CMMI was only for software and likewise convinced the software community that Six Sigma was only for hardware. It is both refreshing and thought provoking to dispel these myths."

—Jack Ferguson, Manager, SEI Appraisal Program, Software Engineering Institute

CMMI and Six Sigma represent two of the best-known process improvement initiatives. Both are designed to enhance work quality and thereby produce business advantages for an organization. It's a misconception that the two are in competition and cannot be implemented simultaneously. Practitioners originally trained in either CMMI or Six Sigma are now finding that the two initiatives work remarkably well together in the pursuit of their common goal.

CMMI® and Six Sigma: Partners in Process Improvement focuses on the synergistic, rather than competitive, implementation of CMMI and Six Sigma—with synergy translating to "faster, better, cheaper" achievement of mission success. Topics range from formation of the value proposition to specific implementation tactics. The authors illustrate how not taking advantage of what both initiatives have to offer puts an organization at risk of sinking time, energy, and money into "inventing" a solution that already exists. Along the way they debunk a few myths about Six Sigma applications in software.

While the authors concentrate on the interoperability of Six Sigma and CMMI, they also recognize that organizations rarely implement only these two initiatives. Accordingly, the discussion turns to the emerging realm of "multimodel" process improvement and strategies and tactics that transcend models to help organizations effectively knit together a single unified internal process standard.

Whether you work in the defense industry, for a commercial organization, or for a government agency—wherever quality and efficiency matter—you'll find this book to be a valuable resource for bridging process issues across domains and building an improvement strategy that succeeds.

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Price: $30.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]

During the past few years, the global environment has been increasingly causing revolutionary, disruptive innovation changes in traditional industries, corporations and business models. Traditional approaches to strategy are proving to be inadequate to deal with these changes, and those who want to survive and succeed in the highly competitive global economy urgently need more dynamic, innovative and holistic approaches to strategy and strategic management.

The major focus of this book is to provide new strategic management approaches and tools to enable capabilities for rapid, discontinuous organizational innovation and change. For both advanced students and business managers, it presents a well-balanced combination of leading-edge theory supported by published articles of prominent scholars, and case studies & examples, all designed to substantiate a new strategic mindset, innovative tools, and practical applications for significantly increased innovative capabilities.

Among the topics covered in the book are innovative business models, open-sourcing, mobile enterprise, industry-inflection, systemic strategy approaches, R&D structures outside the organization, innovation effectiveness tools, networked incubation, customer knowledge cooption, communities of new value creation, and innovative strategy leadership..
Price: $35.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Established companies are clamoring for breakthrough innovation, but are often hamstrung by the highly reliable, repeatable processes of their management systems. Based on years of research, Grabbing Lightning shows how twelve companies have tried to develop a capability for sustainable breakthrough innovation and outlines best practices for your organization.

The authors show how the management system for innovation is different from the traditional one in that it allowsand even encouragesmistakes and failures in order to promote learning. Grabbing Lightning outlines the three building blocks of breakthrough innovation (BI) and shows what it takes to become an organization that values the BI management system..
Price: $5.21 [Notify me when price goes down.]