This discussion will be in the context of software development, although the later version of ‘CMM™’, known as CMMI™ (‘Capability Maturity Model Integration’), and other derivations, widened the application of CMM to the generalised business process world˳ Basically, it is a formal certification by an external agency of an organisation’s maturity of process framework – specifically the ability to deliver a software project˳
Developed and owned by Carnegie Mellon University in the early 1990s, it was based on research into real data collected from companies about their delivery performance˳
Consider how software companies grow – there are clear stages in their development as their level of process sophistication grows and they need to maintain and improve quality levels (one hopes) as their organisational complexity increases˳ For example, ‘Microsoft’ started in a backyard garage in the 1960’s with just two people˳ This has been typical of many software company startups˳
We identify five process-related developmental stages in the model:
1˳ Initial (eg Microsoft in the backyard garage, informal and ad hoc)
2˳ Managed (typically there are processes in place with defined management – eg project management)
3˳ Defined (process standardisation is in place, with an organisation process focus)
4˳ Quantitatively managed (now with a software engineering perspective – product quality and process performance data is being collected – for example bug insertion rates, individual programmer coding performance)˳
5˳ Optimized – the organisation is formally and continually examining the effectiveness of its process performance, and optimising those processes and the ‘learning organisation’ becomes reality˳
Each of these maturity levels have defined Key Process Areas (KPAs) which typify that maturity level˳ Further each KPA has five associated definitions:
1˳ Goals
2˳ Commitment
3˳ Ability
4˳ Measurement
5˳ Verification
The general nature of these KPAs is apparent and the broader application illustrates the reasons why CMMI was developed to widen application, even as far as ‘People CMM™’˳
Just as with a human being, an organisation cannot skip a stage (‘miss out adolescence’), although able managers will be able to shorten the timescales˳ In the explosion of software development outsourcing to the Indian sub-continent, it provided a standardized way of assessing what were basically organisations ‘unknown’ to ‘western’ companies, thereby enabling outsourcing decisions to be made based on objective and independent quality criteria (besides obvious commercial criteria)˳
However, there is a distinction to drawn˳ With suitably experienced management software companies can grow and thrive without the CMM ‘badge’ – for example Microsoft˳
CMM grew out of the US Government’s search for a framework by which to assess potential software / systems suppliers, and it is in this external delivery context that it is quite useful˳
It is particularly beneficial to software/solutions companies engaging in one-off development projects, enabling them to promote a maturity level which should give customers a degree of confidence and enables potential customers to compare potential solutions suppliers˳
CMM may be contrasted with ISO9001 standards˳ ISO does not provide a gradation of maturity as does CMM˳ ISO is about a minimum acceptable quality level for software processes˳ As someone who has worked in organisations under both categorisation (and implemented ISO9001 compliant systems in software houses), the difference to the author is only too obvious˳ In an ISO9000 accredited company (a customer), a manager once said to me (in somewhat stronger language) – ‘what we make is not of great quality, but its level of quality is consistent and standardized’˳
2010 Phil Marks
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