Partner Network Newsletter: May 2012

Partner News

Partner Meeting being held at SEPG EU

Partner business points-of-contact and/or Partner representatives attending SEPG EU can hear the latest news from Lisa Masciantonio, Partner Network Manager, and Jeff Dalton, 2012 PAB Chair, by joining us at the Partner meeting.  Details are:

Wednesday, 6-June
18:00 - 20:00
Roma II Room
NH Eurobuilding Hotel, Mezzanine Floor

If you are planning to attend, please send your RSVP to Kay Vinay at klv@sei.cmu.edu by 18-May-2012.  To register, visit the SEPG EU website.

CMMI News

CMMI High Maturity Workshop to be Held in Conjunction with SEPG Europe in Madrid

Organizations continue to look for guidance on what it takes to implement CMMI high maturity practices. As high maturity organizations work to improve their use of measurement and analysis, they often look to examples of successful implementations for guidance. In response to the need for continued clarification and guidance on implementing measurement and analysis in the context of high maturity processes, the SEI will host a high maturity workshop in conjunction with SEPG Europe to communicate shared understandings of practices that characterize maturity level (ML) 4 and 5 processes. Topics of discussion will include practices described in CMMI ML 4 and 5 process areas, as well as other practices that have a significant impact in mature organizations. Important themes will include statistical process control, process performance models and baselines, for product development, acquisition, and service delivery.

When: afternoon of 4-June (local Madrid time)
Where: NH Eurobuilding Hotel

The room location, registration information, and other details will be forthcoming. To make sure you get those details when they’re available, send email to info@sei.cmu.edu expressing your desire to be notified.

SCAMPI Quality Corner Now Online

Per the request of the Partner Advisory Board, the SCAMPI Team has published a Quality Corner on their online pages. The SCAMPI Quality Corner provides a forum to review issues related to SCAMPI appraisal deliveries. If you would like to submit an issue to be considered for publication in the Quality Corner, please email your request to customer-relations@sei.cmu.edu. Because of limited resources, not all submissions may be addressed. Visit the Quality Corner for more information.

Certification Resources Center Now Online

In case you missed the announcement, the SEI Certification Program has released the online Certification Resources Center available on the Partner Resource Center.  The center was designed to help you track your progress toward completion of your instructor renewal requirements and make it easier to maintain your instructor credentials.

The interface automatically updates with information regarding the professional activities that are recorded in our database (courses taught, courses attended, appraisals led, SEI conferences attended, etc.).  It also allows you to submit information related to continuing education and community support activities that you have completed.  Reference documentation is available via the center for reviewing the renewal requirements and an FAQ page to help you get acquainted with the center, as well as to offer guidelines on how to utilize the professional activities section.

Presently, the system is available for tracking your CMMI Instructor certification renewal requirements.  In the future, we plan to offer a similar tool to track the SCAMPI Lead Appraiser renewal requirements. We invite you to log into the PRC, review the information, and begin tracking your progress toward renewal. Should you have any questions please contact us at olpd-info@sei.cmu.edu.  

CMMI Workshop 2012

The CMMI Workshop 2012 will be held October 16-17 in St. Petersburg, Florida.  Registration for the workshop is now open in the Partner Resource Center.  The overview and travel venue are available online at the CMMI Workshop website.

TSP News

Important TSP Excel Workbook Fix

Several Microsoft security updates, including the recent security update (KB2641426) have caused the Excel-based TSP Workbook to fail.

Among the error messages associated with this problem are the following:

Object library invalid or contains references to object definitions that could not be found
Compile error in hidden module Could not load object because it is unavailable on this machine
Error 400 
Runtime error 57121 
Runtime error 32809

The errors are not caused by the TSP Workbook, they are caused by changes that Microsoft made during the update that affect the installation of the Microsoft ActiveX controls that Excel uses on worksheets and forms. These failures have been reported by users that have the Windows 7 operating systems, and Excel 2007 or Excel 2010, but may occur with other operating systems or versions of Excel.

To eliminate these errors the ActiveX control files, MSCOMCTL.OCX and MSCOMCT2.OCX must be reinstalled and registered. The procedure for installing these files and the latest versions of these files can be found in the Partner Resource Center: TSP Workbook Installation Update.zip and MSCOMCTLmscomct2Win7XL2010.zip.  If you have any problems, please contact Ms. Kim Campbell.

CERT-RMM News

CERT-RMM Training Opportunities in July

The SEI will offer two CERT-RMM courses in July at its Pittsburgh office:

Introduction to the CERT Resilience Management Model Course:  July 16-18

CERT Resilience Management Model Appraisal Boot Camp:  July 19-20

SEI Conferences and Webinars

SEPG Europe 2012 Registration: SEI Partner Discount Codes Available

Held June 5-7 in Madrid, Spain, SEPG Europe 2012 features three days, nine tracks, and more than 40 sessions, offering delegates numerous learning and networking opportunities. As a result of the knowledge and passion from the worldwide community of practice and a record number of abstracts received, SEPG Europe 2012 offers a first-rate technical program.  You can now review the program and build your personal itinerary by visiting the SEPG EU website.

SEI Partner Discount Code: Reserve your place today and save using the SEI Partner discount code found in your newsletter email. This discount code entitles you to receive $100 off the prevailing regular registration rate, so act quickly to save the most on registration fees.

SEI Partner Colleagues & Clients Discount Code: SEI Partners will again have the opportunity to share their discount with their business network so they receive $100 off of the prevailing regular registration rate. This code, also found in your newsletter email, may be shared with your clients, co-workers, or colleagues.

Complete registration today at http://www.sei.cmu.edu/sepg/europe/2012/registration.cfm.

SEI Webinars

SEI Agile Research Forum: Meeting the Challenges of Large-Scale Systems

Join presenters from the US Department of Defense and the SEI in the free, live webinar on May 22, 2012 from1:00 - 4:00 PM ET.  For more on this webinar event, visit the SEI Webinar website.

Past Webinars

If you missed a webinar of interest to you or just want to see what webinars have been presented, you can view a list of them at http://www.sei.cmu.edu/library/webinars.cfm.

Partner Advisory Board News

How to Contact the PAB

If you would want to have an issue or concern discussed at a PAB meeting, please be sure to complete the form available at http://www.sei.cmu.edu/partners/advisoryboard/upload/PABreporting.pdf and send it to sei-pab@sei.cmu.edu. You may also contact your representative personally by sending them email.  The PAB members and their contact information can be found at the Advisory Board website.

Contact Us

The Partner Network team and other SEI contact information has been moved to the resource page on the Partner Network website.  Please bookmark this page for future reference for all of your Partner needs.

The SEI Partner Network Newsletter is sent to all Partner Business Points of Contact and all sponsored SEI-Certified and Authorized individuals. Please take advantage of this venue for current and up-to-date important information from all of the SEI and Partner programs.