People being interviewed should expect to be asked about three different areas: process, product, and culture:
Process-related questions Engineering and management processes are at the core of what the assessment (and the models it is based on) are about. These will be tied to one part or another of the CMM or CMMI.
Product-related questions Understanding what products the organization makes and what their components are is critical to understanding the engineering processes used to build them.
Questions about the organization’s culture These allow the team to probe issues that affect the development efforts or to identify environmental constraints that may inhibit the development process.
Follow-up questions are essential. The following are useful examples:
- "Are there any other questions we should ask you about this activity?"
- "Is there anyone else we should ask about this?"
Follow-up questions allow people being interviewed to speak from their personal perspective, and their answers may influence the rest of their interview and future interviews as well.