Achieving and Maintaining CMMI Maturity Level 5 in a Small Organization

Abstract

Economic achievements, success factors, and lessons learned from real-life examples offer a unique reference for practitionersintending to pursue high-maturity CMMI levels, particularly in small organizational settings. // RESEARCHERS AND PRACTITIO-NERS alike have studied process improvement for many years. 1 CMMI (Capability Maturity Model Integration) models, provided by the CMMI Institute, "consist of best practices that address development activities applied to products and services." 2 CMMI doesn't tell you how to implement your project and organizational processes, but it specifi es specifi c and generic practice requirements.CMMI-rated maturity levels range from 2 to 5, with a 5 denoting an organization said to be "optimizing" because it has highly mature practices that leverage the sophistication of quantitative techniques to measure projects and effectively implements organizational process improvements. High-maturity organizations foster an organization-wide environment of continuous, measured, process improvement and high performance.Achieving a high-maturity CMMI rating in a small organization (fewer than 50 people) is usually more difficult than at medium or large ones, 3,4 primarily because there are fewer experience reports for small organizations. 5,6 That said, most small organizations don't apply CMMI because it's perceived as being too diffi cult. 7 However, as businesses recognize the benefi ts of maturity models, there's growing demand for mature organizations, even if they have fewer than 50 people (http://fremle.talkingvillage.com/resource.x/1585).According to current CMMI Institute database information (http:// c m m i i n s t i t u t e . c o m / a s s e t s / presentations/2013MarCMMI.pdf), of the approximately 5,500 organizations rated worldwide, only 344 organizations have been rated level 5 (78 of which are in the US-of these, only 3 percent are small ones, and less than half are non-military). This article describes our eight-year journey in achieving, and one-year experience in maintaining, maturity level (ML) 5 in an organization called Keymind, a division of Luminpoint. Keymind provides software development, strategic marketing, and user-focused services to both commercial and government customers. Our JourneyWhen we started our journey, we were convinced of its value, but we

Understanding SPI in small organizations: a study of Mexican software enterprises

“…Some studies have identified that the characteristics and status of small organizations can limit SPI initiatives. In their study, Demirors and Demirors identified several issues related to the organizational structure of small organizations.…”

“…These models describe a set of best practices and effective processes that serve as references for organizations to increase the maturity and capability of their processes . Some small enterprises have successfully implemented these standards ; however, small organizations usually have problems establishing or maintaining their SPI initiatives in the long term when using these models. A study in 2003 estimated that the dropout rate of these initiatives in small software enterprises is approximately 70% .…”

Structure of job profiles in companies with CMMI-5 certification in the Colombian Software Industry

“…Given this argument, the inquiry on competence in these three software companies qualified with CMMI-5 is to identify and analyze the following aspects: the key profile in the area of technology of these organizations; the skills that have been acquired or strengthened with the implementation of CMMI model; activities and results achieved through these skills and how the competences have contributed to that organizations to become consolidated as leaders in the creation and development of software in Colombia. Some studies were conducted by the government and the Colombian companies [3] [4] [9] and studies to implement the CMMI methodology for small and medium organizations [10], the evaluation of a process of implementing CMMI in a organization [11], implementation based on CMMI model for other areas such as academia and health [12] through a new method, conceptualizing IT capabilities in organizations with a focus on developing products and services in IT [13], and other works concerning on the implementation of CMMI model in different contexts for improving organizational processes and software, investigations such as Moreno [14], Falesi [15], Lukasiewicz, K. and Miller, J. [16] Lopes [17] and works made by big organizations related with skills and job profiles as presented by Ernst and Young [7] specifies that the support organizations are the individuals who work in them and It is necessary to know the skills that require the job profile and the skills that people offer in the labor market.…”

Assessing ISO/IEC29110 by means of ITMark: results from an experience factory

“…There is still empirical evidence of the long‐term results of the application of this standard. However, there is relatively small and documented and positive evidence on the results of the implementation of heavier models in small organizations like, for instance, CMMI . In contrast, there is also strong evidence on the difficulties of the application of these kind of models in small organizations .…”

“…like, for instance, CMMI [11]. In contrast, there is also strong evidence on the difficulties of the application of these kind of models in small organizations [12,13].…”