Case Study: CMMI Assessment and Process Infrastructure

Challenge: Since technology is a core competency of this digital marketing firm, the CEO wanted to baseline the state of their current end-to-end software development documentation and practices against industry best practices using the CMMI framework.  The assessment’s goals were to substantiate the firm’s technology capability within the marketplace and to provide focus and a process management infrastructure for continuous improvement.

Solution: A Scampi C Appraisal was used to assess the end-to-end software development documentation and practices for all 18 process areas within CMMI Level 2 and Level 3. We recommended a Scampi C because it is non-intrusive and does not require a large commitment of time or resources. Organization-level, project-level and implementation-level artifacts from three representative projects were collected, reviewed and mapped to verify compliance to the CMMI. Observations noted from the document review were captured and used to develop findings against the model. Confidential interviews were held with the project leaders and participants to validate and collaborate the data prior to making final judgments. Findings were presented to senior management and the assessment’s participants. These findings identified areas that could be improved or were not compliant with the CMMI model.

To jump start their Improvement Program, we also conducted a workshop to build out a process management infrastructure to address quick hit process improvements and releases of new processes. This infrastructure included process definitions and templates for selecting the process for improvement, defining the process and deploying the process. Other process infrastructure components included training, measuring and monitoring the use of the process, and improving the process based on measurements and feedback.

Result: With both a capability baseline and process management infrastructure in place, the firm was able to independently move forward in defining, improving and deploying consistent processes that are most critical to their business. Aligning their Improvement Program to the CMMI model provides the option to seek formal CMMI certification in the future for a competitive advantage.