Mary Sakry and Neil Potter are cofounders of The Process Group, a company that consults in engineering and project management skills, in addition to process improvement.

In 1990, Neil and Mary founded The Process Group. Since then, they have been helping organizations implement project management, estimation, requirements engineering, inspections, supplier management and CMM / CMMI. (See testimonials). They have been SEI-authorized lead appraisers since the beginning of the SEI program. They are instructors for the SEI Introduction to CMMI course, lead appraisers (with High Maturity certification) for the CMMI SCAMPI appraisal method, and Certified Scrum Masters. Neil is also certified to teach and appraise using the CMMI for Services model.

Neil and Mary are co-authors of the book "Making Process Improvement Work - A Concise Action Guide for Software Managers and Practitioners," Addison-Wesley, 2002.

Background

Mary Sakry has been working in software development, project management and process improvement since 1976. For 15 years she was a Project Manager and Software Engineer within Texas Instruments (TI) in Austin, Texas. In 1988, while employed by TI, Mary was a member of a corporate Software Engineering Process Group (SEPG) and responsible for SEI CMM self-assessments across TI worldwide. She has an M.B.A. in Business Management from St. Edwards University and a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Minnesota. Mary is trained in Six Sigma and is a Certified Scrum Master.

Neil Potter has been working in software design, engineering and process management since 1985. In 1988 Neil was an SEPG manager in a TI software development group, spanning USA, India and England. He has a B.Sc. in Computer Science from the University of Essex in England and Six Sigma Greenbelt certification from the University of Michigan. Neil is also a Certified Scrum Master (certified by Mike Cohn).

The Software Engineering Institute has awarded the SCAMPI High Maturity Lead Appraiser certification to Neil Potter and Mary Sakry. This certification recognizes their expertise for determining that an organization has demonstrated the capability to quantitatively manage its projects to produce high-quality, predictable results at CMMI Maturity Levels 4 and 5. Benefits of this certification include recognition from the SEI as a member of the select group of individuals who are setting the standards for the lead appraiser community.