CAPABILITY MATURITY MODEL
CMMI Appraisal Made Achievable
CMMI
Capability Maturity Model Integration, also known as the CMMI, is a method for streamlining process improvement, allowing businesses to be more efficient in their production. It’s a process and behavioral model that, if properly applied, can make a business more effective. It is a system that was developed by a Carnegie Mellon University team at their Software Engineering Institute. The team wanted to find a plan to ensure that businesses could constantly improve once they implemented it. For a basis, they turned to a Department of Defense initiative designed for contractors working alongside the DoD on various projects. The CMMI was developed and overseen by the CMMI Institute, which ISACA purchased in 2016. Today, businesses leverage the power of the CMMI to improve their internal processes to make them more competitive in their respective industries.
The CMMI is composed of three capability (constellations) levels and five maturity levels. As a model, it tends to cover several different process areas, including:
- CMMI for development for products and services, also known as CMMI-DEV
- CMMI for services management and creation – CMMI-SVC
- CMMI for the acquisition of services and products – CMMI-ACQ
Among these specializations, there are over three hundred specific and generic processes for which organizations can be rated.
The Importance of CMMI
The CMMI is an internationally recognized standard, making it something that businesses worldwide understand and support. Because of its best practices, a company running the CMMI in its processes can integrate its functions with other companies following the same model. It creates a much better way for businesses to interface. Instead of internal processes not interacting with each other or needing an intermediary to function, the CMMI implements a seamless way to develop and maintain elements of business-like supply chains across geographical regions.
Because of this ease of integration, some international businesses require any company that deals with them to have CMMI certification. Not only does it ensure compatibility between themselves and the other business, but it also allows them to improve their processes constantly. The CMMI’s core belief is that the business’s processes should continuously be improved. As with any continually improving process, a company will examine its internal functions and come up with ways to implement the improvement practically. The CMMI isn’t a production methodology but rather a model that encompasses processes and takes a behavioral approach to improve these processes.
The Benefits That CMMI Offers
A business implementing the CMMI as part of its process improvement strategy can benefit significantly over time. The maturity levels play a significant role in determining how improved the business’s processes are. Among the benefits that implementing the CMMI may bring to a company are:
- A deeper understanding of product/service life cycles: because of the in-depth documentation of the business’s processes, companies can gain insight into their product/service life cycles at a granularity never before attained.
- Better ROI: Process improvements usually mean less wasted resources and better capacity /resource utilization. Thus, the company saves money, leading to better ROI on projects.
- Consistent Quality and Delivery: CMMI works well with a QMS system helping a business to deliver quality products/services each time. Delivery takes place on time as the business’s processes become more efficient. Product /Service deliverable timeframes are reduced.
- More Competitive: As businesses compete with others to secure contracts and clients, the need to be more competitive supersedes others. The CMMI allows a company to improve its efficiency, allowing it to compete while still staying on budget and providing consistent deliverables.
- More Efficient Processes: As part of the core functionality of the CMMI, businesses seek to improve the efficiency of their processes across the board. The CMMI achieves this goal by examining the processes and proposing improvements that will reduce the delivery time and product/service cost.
Is The CMMI Right for You?
The CMMI is an open-ended system that can be applied to one or more industries. However, since there are different specializations, you may need to determine which one works best for your company. By choosing a CMMI specialization that focuses on what your company wants to achieve, you can successfully improve your business’s process efficiency and make it more competitive. Consult Sync Resource today to learn more about the specializations and determine which one best suits your business’s needs.