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William Hackos, Jr., PhD
Vice President, Comtech Services, Inc.
http://www.comtech-serv.com
You are probably familiar with the concept of process
majority as promoted by JoAnn Hackos. Some of you may have
had process maturity audits done for your
information-development department. JoAnn has emphasized
that although good writing can come out of any kind of
environment, good, repeatable documentation requires a level
of management maturity within the department.
JoAnn developed her ideas about the
Information
Development Process Maturity Model (IPMM) as an analogy
to the Software Engineering Institute's
Capability Maturity Model (CMM). A process maturity model for
outsourcing, the
Outsourcing
Management Maturity Model
(OMMM), has been defined by Wissam Raggoul and was
first published by the Meta Group on February 8, 2002.
What do these process maturity models have in common
and what are their differences? Is there some
commonality of all process maturity models that we
might call the General Process Maturity Model (GPMM)?
The IPMM and the OMMM are based on the methodology
first created for the CMM. Each model has five levels
of maturity based on some defined attributes. Each
model makes the assumption, based on careful
observation, that some sort of maturity exists in the
discipline and that departments or companies mature
through particular phases, just as people mature from
infants to children to adults to senior citizens. We
can determine the maturity of people by observing their
behavior. We know that all people mature through the
same stages. Similarly, we can determine the maturity
of an organization by observing its behavior.
All of the models have a list of traits that define the
maturity level. However, each model has a different
approach to defining these traits. The CMM, developed
by the Software Engineering Institute, prescribes
specific key process areas to define each level. CMM
Level 1 (Initial) is defined as chaotic because few if
any formal processes exist. At Level 2 (Repeatable),
basic management processes are established to track
cost, schedule, and functionality. At Level 3
(Defined), the processes for both management and
engineering activities are documented and integrated
into a standard software-development process. Further
process improvements are made for Levels 4 and 5.
For the IPMM, developed by JoAnn Hackos at the Center
for Information-Development Management, eight key
practices are defined. They are
- Organizational Structure
- Quality Assurance
- Information Planning
- Scheduling and Estimating
- Hiring and Training
- Information Design
- Cost Control
- Quality Management
The maturity levels are defined based on the level of
development of each of these eight key practices. Level 1
(Ad Hoc) has little if any development for any of the key
practices while higher levels have greater and greater
development of these same key practices. By using the eight
key practices, Hackos does not need to make the assumption
that the CMM makes: all organizations mature at the same
pace and in the same way. Instead, Hackos allows for
diversity among organizations. For example, a high maturity
level in scheduling and estimating might balance an
immaturity in the area of quality assurance.
The outsourcing model is organized differently than
either the CMM or the IPMM. In the OMMM, each level is
defined by the conditions that must be met to reach
that level. For Level 2, some of the conditions are to
"Establish a relationship management structure to
create a winning relationship" and "Establish SLAs
[service level agreements] for all outsourced services
to quantify service outcome." It's difficult to use
these conditions to evaluate the level of OMMM maturity
for a given organization. The OMMM is organized more
like a prioritized list of actions to achieve
outsourcing success rather than as a model.
The differences between the three models are partly due
to the motivations for the models. The CMM was
developed because the federal government was having
trouble hiring competent software vendors and wanted
some way to measure vendor competence. The CMM is a
certification that is used to market vendor
services—hence its stress on formal documented
processes and its lack of stress on quality. The IPMM
stresses quality as well as process because
information-development departments use it to
demonstrate the value of their organizations to
management. The OMMM is a priority listing of
conditions that must be met jointly by management and
outsourcing vendors. Outsourcing is primarily a
management and contractual relationship rather than
managing an organization of technical people.
However, despite their differences, the three models
have much in common. All three describe a range of
management competencies for their disciplines. All
three describe how to improve and move up the maturity
scale.
Can We Describe a General Maturity Model for an Organization?
All three models have ranges of processes from none to
informal to documented to optimized. All three move
from isolation to awareness of industry standards. All
three range from no control to effective control. All
vary from keeping the status quo to effectively
improving practices.
Based on what is common among the three models, we can
define a general process maturity model (GPMM). In GPMM
terms, the lowest level is an organization with little
if any process, nothing written down, no idea what goes
on in similar organizations, little or no control over
its output, and no clue that there is any need for
improvement.
At the highest level is an organization that has
well-documented formal processes, is constantly
benchmarking against similar organizations, has
effective quality control in place, and is always
trying to optimize its processes.
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