CMMI High Maturity Level is one of the Prestigious Rating any IT/ITES Companies would be interested in getting. The Maturity Level 4 and 5 achievement is considered as High Maturity as the Organizations understand their own performance and Process performance. In addition they bring world class practices to improve the Process Performance to meet their Business Needs. CMMI Institute has kept very high standards in appraisals to ensure that stringent evaluations are done before announcing the rating. Similarly the practices given at Level 4 and Level 5 are having high integrity and complete alignment with each other to stimulate Business Performance. Hence it’s become every Organizations interest to achieve High Maturity Levels and also when they see the competitor is already been appraised at that level, it becomes vital from marketing point of view to prove their own process Maturity. The ratings are given for the processes and not for product or services. Hence a High Maturity Organization means, that they are having better equipped processes to deliver results.
Why not every Organization go for Maturity Level 5 is a question which is there in our mind for quite some time. It becomes difficult because the understanding on High Maturity expectations are less in many organizations, advanced quality concepts, statistical usage expectations, longer cycles to see results, etc are some of the reasons which prevents organizations. In 2006 when I was an Appraisal Team Member looking at evidences for Maturity Level 5, myself and the Lead Appraiser has mapped the Scatter plot of Effort Variance vs Size for Process Performance Model. After 9 years when we look back, the Industry has moved on and does the CMMI Model V1.3. There is much better clarity on what do we expected to do CMMI High Maturity. Similarly in 2007 there was a huge demand for Statistics Professors in Organizations which goes for CMMI High Maturity and some organizations have recruited Six sigma Black belts to do CMMI High Maturity Implementation. There was huge stress on applying statistics in its best of form in organizations than the business results achievement. However with CMMI V.3 model release CMMI Institute (then “SEI”) has ensured that it provides many clarifications materials, it grades the Lead Appraisers as High Maturity Lead Appraiser, conducts regular workshops by which many people in Industry has Benefitted with adequate details on what is expected as CMMI High Maturity Organization. However still there is concern that this knowledge has not reached many upcoming. Small and medium sector companies as intended. Also in bigger organizations when they achieve ML4 or ML5 only a limited set of people work on this and/or in a particular function of the implementation they work. These factors reduces the number of people who can actually interpret ML5 without any assistance. This also means very few organizations are within comfort zones of High Maturity.
The Purpose of this book is to give insight about High Maturity Implementation and how to interpret the practices in real life conditions of an organization. The Book is written from Implementation point of view and not from technical expectations point of view. The usage of CMMI word is trademark of CMMI Institute, similarly the contents of the CMMI model wherever we refer in this book is for Reference purpose only and its copyright material of CMMI. I would recommend you to refer “CMMI Implementation Guide” book along with this book for understanding up to CMMI ML3 practices and its implementation. This book deals only with CMMI Maturity Level 4 and 5 practices. I have tried covering CMMI Development model and Services model implementation in this book.
High Maturity Organizations has always been identified with their ability to understand the past quantitatively, manage the current performance quantitatively and predict the future quantitatively. High Maturity Organizations always maintains traceability with their business objectives with Process Objectives and manage the process. In addition they measure Business results and compare with their objectives and perform suitable improvements. However even a Maturity Level 3 organization can also maintain such traceability and measure their business results, which is the need of the hour in Industry. I am sure CMMI Institute will consider this need.
In addition there is a growing need of engagement level benchmarking which clients are interested. The client wants to know whether their projects have been handled with best of the process and what is the grading/rating can be given. The current Model of CMMI is more suitable for Organizational unit/Enterprise wide appraisals, however engagement level rating needs better design or new recommendation on how do the process areas are selected and used. In high maturity Organizations we can see the use of prediction model and few specific Process areas being used by many organization to demonstrate engagement level maturity. Many a times they miss out the Business objectives and client objectives traceability to Engagement Objectives and from there how they are achieved. There is a growing need for Engagement level Maturity assessment from users.
In High Maturity Organizations we typically see a number of Process Performance Baselines, Process Performance Models, Causal analysis Reports, Innovation Boards and capable Process to deliver Results. In this book we will see about all these components and how they are created. The flow the book is designed in that way, where we go by the natural implementation steps ( in a way you can make your implementation schedule accordingly) and then end of the relevant chapters, we will indicate which process area and what are the specific practices are covered in it. However you may remember the goals have to be achieved and practices are expected components only. Similarly we will not be explaining the Generic Practices, as you may read the same in “CMMI Implementation Guide” book. Also there is a detailed book only on “Process performance Models - Statistical, Probabilistic and simulation” which details on various methods by which process performance models can be developed with detailed step. I would recommend to refer this book, if you want to do something more than regression based model given in this book. Also for the beginners and practitioners in quality, to refresh and learn different techniques in quality assurance field, you can choose to refer “Jumpstart to Software Quality Assurance” book.
Let’s start our High Maturity Journey Now!