Documentless Assessments Using Nominal Group Interviews
For process assessment practitioners, this method offers a collaborative alternative to traditional document reviews, but the evidence is limited to a single case study.
The paper introduces a group interview technique for documentless process assessments that uses user stories and Planning Poker to foster collaboration and agreement among participants, successfully applied in a consulting assignment where previously discordant participants reached consensus.
This paper describes a group interview technique designed to support documentless process assessments while promoting at the same time collaboration among assessment participants. The method was successfully used in one consulting assignment where it got previously discording participants, talking to each other and agreeing on the issues. The technique borrows from agile software development the concept of user stories to cast CMMIs specific practices in concrete terms and the Planning Poker technique, instead of document reviews and audit like interviews, for fact finding and corroboration.