CMMI: A Framework for Building World Class Software Organisations

Book Description

CMMI: A Framework for Building World Class Software Organisations

“Not every practitioner can take a course in CMMI, but everyone can read a book to better learn how to interpret the model. I have learned from this book. This book should facilitate learning for all readers.” Ron Radice, Principal Partner, Software Technology Transition “Managing change in an organization is a difficult task. This book provides a guide to that change at an incremental level that is well thought out and based on the experience of many organizations. Here at last is a guide for managers as well as for technologists”. George Smith, CEO, CG-Smith Software Private Limited. This book addresses how continuous process improvement could become an organizational core competency; more than just being a differentiator. Can Continuous Process Improvement become a core competence for practitioners? How does one know if a process is improving? What is the difference between Software CMM and CMMI? How will adopting CMMI effect the organization? Answers to these questions from the core of this book. It is the sum and substance of the author’s long personal experience with leading change management initiatives in world-class organizations as a practitioner, lead appraiser, and an SEI authorized instructor on the CMMI. It is his strong belief that truly world-class software development organizations implement methods and practices advocated within the CMMI (Capability Maturity Model Integration) as if it were a core competency. The author illustrates how CMMI could very well be a framework that supports the notion of being a Design for Six Sigma for a software or for a software or systems development process. Replete with numerous examples, implementation references from the SITARA Process JewelBoxTM and insightful explanations, the book illustrates that ultimately what matters to an organization is how well a process contributes to the overall business success for those using the process. This is where CMMI provides a do-able and sustainable way to go about improving process performance and capability. The book establishes a clear distinction between process capability and process maturity while exploring the two CMMI frameworks-the staged and the continuous representations. It goes into the details of how with the attainment of each maturity level, a new culture is grown and the foundation for seeding the next is established. And as each level is transcended from the initial level to the optimizing level, a culture of continuous process improvement and a culture of informed learning is established within the enterprise. CMMI: A Framework for Building World Class Software and Systems Enterprises is intended to facilitate decision making right from the very beginning when on has to decide which model representation is best suited. It is a jewel-box of implementation ideas and approaches and contains numerous software and non-software examples to illustrate the concepts. Many of the implementation details contained in this book have their origins in the SITARA Process JewelBoxTM- a treasure trove of best practices resulting from research conducted at SITARA Technologies, Inc. Interpretations of the CMMI practices in this book will offer the reader a bedrock understanding of what CMMI is all about. CMMI is an excellent approach to process improvement but it gives no real indication of how management must change to get the most out of the ever evolving process that adopting CMMI will produce. This book presents the reader with such information, to broaden one’s perspective and to offer a range of choices to make. Intended Audience: CEOs, Senior Managers, Process Specialists and Practitioners who are keen to adopt and transition out from Software CMM to CMMI.