Warning: strpos() [function.strpos]: needle is not a string or an integer in /home/karaatanasov/public_html/index.php on line 17

Warning: strpos() [function.strpos]: needle is not a string or an integer in /home/karaatanasov/public_html/index.php on line 23
Kiril's web log
I am an Intro to CMMI instructor! 
Friday, April 27, 2007, 11:08 PM - CMMI, Introduction to CMMI course
Today I finished successfully the observation for becoming Introduction to CMMI instructor.

It was very exhausting, interesting and challenging experience.

Good is that there were two of us Youri Metchev and me teaching together so we split modules and exercises. Thus one gets time to go over material just before presenting it and it also allows get some rest between presentations. Despite this the 3 days are exhausting. Added to the teaching itself the stress for me was quite high so this added up to the exhaustion.

There is a lot I learned preparing and actually teaching the Intro to CMMI course. You learn a lot of small tips to better present material to people. Our observer was Pat Kirwan a great guy; he helped us evolve our teaching and presentations skills dramatically during the 3 days.

I also got really deep into the book – before you train in the observation you realize responsibility you take by standing in front of audience that has invested significant amount of money to learn something. I look as well at the expectations and plans wemade with ESI for delivering training and this capability depends on your performance during the observation.

Well once you realize you have prepared enough and you are not so bad in communicating to the audience - It gets much easier. Indeed you start having fun engaging people and discussing different matters. It gets tough sometimes when a strange question is thrown, but I guess this id normal. It is an intro calls and people would have hard time with even basic concepts.

Well end of the day I am very very happy. It has been a great experience and I am keen to do more training now.

  |  [ 0 trackbacks ]   |  permalink  |   ( 3 / 3793 )
My first CMMI training is scheduled! 
Thursday, April 5, 2007, 12:48 AM - CMMI
Hello,

I have just received the official confirmation from SEI that my observation Introduction to CMMI training will be on 25-27 April 2007.

This will be a public course. It will be offered in Sofia, Bulgaria. So if you would like to come please get in touch with ESI http://www.esicenter.bg. I would be more then glad to have bigger audience.

For details on what this training is about see the SEI official page about Introduction to CMMI training

This is great news as both ESI and myself will have much better opportunities to help companies in the region work with the model.

I hope to see you there!
  |  [ 0 trackbacks ]   |  permalink  |   ( 3 / 1512 )
A SPIN BG meeting 
Saturday, January 20, 2007, 12:31 AM - CMMI, CMMI Publications
We had a SPIN BG meeting this week.

There were several quite interesting items discussed:

1. There is a Bulgarian company that achieved maturity level 2 in CMMI. The company name is MPS. This is big achievement as it is the first company in the region that has achieved a CMMI rating from A class SCAMPI. We discussed their SCAMPI experience on the meeting.

2. Just a month later a Romanian company achieved CMMI maturity level 3 rating

3. I made short presentation about the new developments in CMMI 1.2 . Of course you can download it form the link - CMMI 1.2 what is new
  |  [ 0 trackbacks ]   |  permalink  |   ( 3 / 10192 )
Some shots from this morning 
Thursday, December 28, 2006, 01:47 PM - Personal
Today I got some nice shots of my dog while we were on a walk in the mountain.

There seems to be a lot I need to learn about taking pictures of moving objects.

Click on the picture below to open the album in Picasa Web


  |  [ 0 trackbacks ]   |  permalink  |   ( 3 / 3223 )
On the way to become CMMI Instructor 
Thursday, December 21, 2006, 11:15 AM - CMMI, Personal
The latest news about me is that I took the way to becoming instructor for the Introduction to CMMI course. I already attended the course in November in Frankfurt and am now looking to schedule and conduct my observation. For this I am partnering with the Bulgarian ESI Center .

Perhaps many would like to know more about the Instructor course. Well the course is superb in my opinion. We had excellent trainers that have been working with CMMI for many years and had very deep understanding of complex concepts. The other important part is that you learn a lot about training by watching the instructors as well as the other students.


The model training



Even though the training is not aimed towards the model you do learn a lot about CMMI in these 3 days. To learn at this level about CMMI one must have very good idea of the process areas and the discussion will bring new level of understanding of the model. Some of the things discussed include Process Area relationships, evolution of concepts through the levels of the model, better understanding of how to read and apply CMMI and last but not least the concept of institutionalization.


Trainer training



The other aspect of importance to me was to acquire or enrich my trainer skills and better understand what it takes to teach the course. Again the experience and professionalism of the trainers helped a lot.
The intro training is very fine balance between interactive and engaging training experience and racing against the clock. The training gives you some guidelines how to avoid loosing time, save time if you lost some and how to keep the discussion to the point and avoid distractions.
On the trainer training one is able to see two experienced trainers and several other individuals in my case all form different cultural background. This combined with the ability to experiment with different approaches makes the training valuable experience that sets guidelines for further improvement.


I guess some of you will be interested to take the instructor course yourself and are wondering how difficult is the training and what preparation is required. The answer is that one needs to know the model well and spend a week or two in preparation on the model and few days for completion of the pre-class assignment. The training itself is intensive and not easy, but the instructors do help a lot and aim to have all successful classes. During the course there is one examination and several presentations for assessing the capabilities of the candidate instructors. These should not be a problem provided one knows the model well and is serious about becoming instructor. Indeed during the presentations you will be encouraged to experiment and try out approaches you would not otherwise attempt in front of audience.

Finally if you are new to CMMI and would like to learn more get in touch!

  |  [ 0 trackbacks ]   |  permalink  |   ( 3 / 7261 )

Back Next