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People at Their Best

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DQI Bureau
New Update

What do you do when you are booked on J-class and find out that one of your

junior colleagues, who is entitled to Y-class, is also on the same flight? Well,

if you have some time before you board the aircraft, you downgrade your booking.

However, if you have already boarded the aircraft, the best option is to request

the cabin-crew for a seat next to your colleague…

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If you think this is some fluff being quoted from the human rights blue book,

hold on... this is a real example from an exhaustive document on do’s and dont’s

from TechSpan, the youngest company to achieve level 3 of the people capability

maturity model (PCMM).

And in case you got it wrong, PCMM does not make it mandatory for a company

to actually include such instructions in its employee handbook. Rather, it

attempts to make an organization conscious enough to develop best practices for

nurturing, developing and managing its workforce. It’s an evolutionary roadmap

for implementing the vital practices from one or more domains of organizational

process. It contains the essential elements of effective processes for one or

more disciplines and describes an evolutionary improvement path from an ad hoc,

immature process to a disciplined, mature process with improved quality and

effectiveness.

Also, since an organization cannot implement all of the best workforce

practices in a day, PCMM introduces them in stages.

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Each progressive level of the PCMM produces a unique transformation in the

organization’s culture by equipping it with more powerful practices for

attracting, developing, organizing, motivating, and retaining its workforce.

Thus, the PCMM establishes an integrated system of workforce practices that

matures through increasing alignment with the organization’s business

objectives, performance, and changing needs.

Why PCMM?



Forty years ago, people feared that technology would reduce the need for

educated workers, leaving large segments of the population unemployed. What

actually happened was just the opposite. In fact, the demand for educated

workers today exceeds the supply. In the knowledge economy, companies are

competing in two markets–one for its products and services and the other for

the essential talent to develop and deliver them.

Recruiting and retention are now as important as production and distribution

in the corporate business strategies of knowledge-intensive companies. Although

most companies understand the importance of attracting and retaining talent,

many lack a coherent approach to achieving their talent goals. Further, most

lack the vision to integrate a system of practices to achieve their workforce

objectives. This is where PCMM tells you exactly what the Fortune 500 companies

have been doing world over to tackle the situation.

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The Dos

The

Don'ts

Detailed

planning is critical and the plans must include even the minutest of

details about each and every activity and how it is to be performed
Do

not succumb to the ‘level fever’ — wherein the desire to achieve a

certain maturity level in P-CMM becomes more important than achieving the

business benefits attained through improved practices
Ensure that

the plans have realistic deadlines and are acceptable to all the members

involved in the activities contained in the plans
Do not try

to skip maturity levels — you cannot implement practices at higher

levels of maturity without first building the infrastructure of practices

provided by lower maturity levels of the model
Continuously

make efforts to increase awareness among staff through more involvement in

processes and policies and a good communication plan
Project

constraints, disturbances and daily routine tasks could severely hamper

the progress of such initiatives
Keep the

people processes as simple as possible
Avoid too

many process changes or else trend analysis will be a problem
Concentrate

on the measurements and trends for process improvements
Never

ignore suggestions and recommendations of the task force members
Measure the

progress regularly. It helps in fine tuning the process
   
Ensure the

enthusiasm and commitment of each and every member of the assessment team
   
A

trremendous sense of timeliness and punctuality is necessary with respect

to the plans
   
Members of

the assessment team should have good understanding of the P-CMM model in

order to ensure that the process framework remains relevant to the

organization’s people and business practices
   

The primary objective of PCMM is to improve the capability of the workforce,

which can be defined as the level of knowledge, skills, and process abilities

available for performing an organization’s business activities. Workforce

capability indicates an organization’s readiness for performing its critical

business activities and the likely results from performing these business

activities. It also means working towards the potential for benefiting from

investments in process improvement or advanced technology.

No wonder then, since its release in 1995, it has successfully guided

workforce improvement programs in companies such as Boeing, Ericsson and

Lockheed Martin. Interestingly, while Wipro is the first company to achieve the

highest level (PCMM 5) globally, TechSpan India is the youngest company to touch

level 3.

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The

RoI
A positive balance between high

performance workforce practices and the organization’s financial

performance
Analysis of

several different samples throughout the 1990s show strong support for a

very positive relationship between high performance workforce practices

and organization’s financial performance.

The SEI-CMU document on P-CMM independent

studies has revealed that one standard deviation improvement of a firm’s

workforce practices can result in approximately 20A% increase in

shareholder value and a significant reduction in voluntary departure

rates. The study conducted across 1,000 firms from all major industries

shows that one such step not only helps in reducing the employee turnover

rate by 7.05%, it also translates into $27,044 increase in per employee

sale, $3,814 jump in profitability and $18,641 addition to market

valuation.

A similar study by Welbourne and Andrews

amongst 136 non-financial organizations offering IPOs in the US stock

market during 1988 suggests that while the average survival probability

was 0.70, organizations that placed a high level of value on their

employees had a 0.79 probability of survival. On the other hand, companies

that placed less value on their employees had a survival probability of

only 0.60.

When considering employee compensation

and rewards, an organization that had high levels of employee value,

compensation and rewards increased its survival probability to 0.92, while

firms that scored low on both measures lowered their chance of

organizational survival to 0.34.

Top of the world



Wipro’s first brush with the process was in as early as 1995. According to
company V-P (HR) Pratik Kumar, it was decided to deploy this model due to Wipro’s

inherent focus on processes to deliver high quality services and products and

develop exceptional talent. "The depth and width of PCMM to make a robust

and sustained people process structure motivated us to go for it," he

added. However, the initiation took some time. Between 1996 and 1997, it was a

phase of selling the concept internally–the top management and employees being

taken through the awareness campaign and PCMM related communications. The entire

organization was addressed and key people from across different levels and

departments were involved at various stages. Champions were developed at all

levels and functions–from the CEO of the company to the talent engagement and

developmental head, followed by business heads, technical managers and people

from delivery, quality and marketing functions. And finally, when the company

formally launched its PCMM initiative there were 100 champions to start this

journey.

The next big leap towards achieving PCMM was to conduct a gap analysis to

understand the missing links between what Wipro was practicing and what the

model prescribed. Design and implementation of the processes that could bridge

the gap followed. Documentation of the processes was another activity that was

initiated as a parallel activity. "We looked at the documentation from two

perspectives. One, it provides the necessary backbone support and two, it also

identifies possible gaps in an existing process," Kumar explained. With

this in mind, the 100-odd champions set out to conduct the huge task of

documentation. There was more to come. There was a need to institutionalize the

processes and here, the strong belief in the four threads of developing

competency, managing and motivating performance, shaping workforce and building

team culture came handy. Next on the block was the need for communication within

the organization on the processes, their impact, usage and modes of feedback.

Finally, measurement factors through quantification on status and value of

processes implemented were put in place. Spot checks were conducted to validate

the status and health of processes and to ensure that they are being

implemented. A detailed pre-assessment on the PCMM framework across organization

preceded the final assessment as prescribed by the Software Engineering

Institute. The final assessment was done by none other than the principal

architect of the model–Dr Bill Curtis.

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What next?



While Wipro’s entire journey to PCMM level 5 was completed in 2001, the

model itself advocates continuous improvement. So what’s the next step for the

company which has already achieved the top level? "We will continue to work

on emerging HR challenges and use the PCMM framework to sustain the robustness

of our processes," says Kumar. Meanwhile, Wipro is also providing

consultation to some of its overseas clients in assessing the maturity of their

people processes, developing a roadmap for improvement and facilitating their

journey.

Age no bar



"Right from day one of our PCMM journey, we knew that the final

assessment of the model framework would be a by-product of our initiative to

institutionalize processes that impact people and their productivity in TechSpan,"

says Arjun Malhotra, chairman and CEO, TechSpan. He proudly adds, "Being

assessed at P-CMM level 3 means we are in exclusive and distinguished company of

high maturity organizations, and we have earned the distinction of being the

world’s youngest and only e-business centric company achieve this."

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According to TechSpan’s senior manager for people development, Monica

Mudgal, the journey, which was appropriately termed the ‘people

process improvement’ (PPI) initiative, was aimed at achieving three

specific objectives. First, to increase the involvement of employees in creating

and improving people practices. Second, to standardize people processes with the

help of the SEI People framework and third, to increase efficiency and

scalability of people processes and overall software development and delivery

operations.

PCMM Pre requisites
Management commitment The top management should agree to the concept and understand the importance of people processes and the need to invest time and resources--financial and people--for the same. 
Process orientation There should be an inherent desire to change and continuously improve. Perpetual improvement of workforce practices ensures organizational success. 
Participatory culture The need to involve people in defining and then continuously and consistently improving organizational and people practices and processes. 
External resource It is also important to have committed and qualified people to hand hold the organization during the entire exercise. This is where consultants and lead assessors really help. 
Internal resources The internal resource should be sensitized and ideally one person from the people development team should be allocated for every 20 employees. 

So how did they do it? The first phase (1999-2000), Mudgal explains, was all

about getting management commitment to pursue the ‘people first’ philosophy

and recognition of the fact that people form the key to sustained business

success. After a unanimous buy in the PCMM model and analysis of where the

company stood, it was decided that level-3 was a realistic target to achieve.

Adds Mudgal, "The higher levels were too ambitious for TechSpan at that

stage."

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April 2000 saw the company actually taking the plunge after its key members

attended a workshop organized by QAI. Soon Mudgal and her team were mapping all

the people policies and processes to understand the missing areas. Task forces

from amongst the employees were formed for each key process area (KPA). Luckily

for TechSpan, the gap analysis showed that the company already had 80% of

systems in place for level 3. The need was now to create a plan for covering the

remaining 20% and this became the key result area for each KPA.

The next phase involved the formal launch of PCMM. Education sessions with

the staff were held on the various PCMM KPAs and the people processes within the

company and 13 internal assessment team members were selected. All this, while

the task forces were fine tuning processes within their KPAs. However, the

company decided to postpone the final assessment date from May 2001 to December

in order to buy some more time for implementation of suggested improvements in

processes. This was also aimed to ensure effectiveness of newer initiatives and

to increase awareness among staff through more involvement. The time was also

well spent with the ATMs undergoing training on assessment techniques, while a

two-days spot-check or mini-pre-assessment was also carried out during the

period. The final assessment included interviews with process owners, senior

managers and staff, collation of data from the interview sessions, document

reviews, survey findings and the conclusive rating.

The road ahead



"The certification has been an important milestone that has left its

mark on all those involved in this journey at TechSpan. The certification has

helped TechSpan in addressing and tackling important issues like career

development, performance management, competency development, training and

organizational competency," says Bonnie Singh, executive director, TechSpan

India and sponsor for it’s P-CMM initiative. According to him, the next step

for the PPI team is to harness the learnings from the assessment process

to further enhance the robustness of the existing people processes at level

3 maturity in the next six months. And by August 2003, TechSpan is aiming for

the PCMM 4.

While the Indian software industry has been quick in adopting the software

CMM developed by Software Engineering Institute (SEI), and there are already two

dozen IT companies assessed at level 5, experts suggest that PCMM is slated to

be the next big thing in the software industry. And as Mudgal says,

"Process improvement is important but the key to success is the capability

of the people-ware. In fact, the P-CMM model works as a supporting process

framework to facilitate better software processes."

SHUBHENDU PARTH in New Delhi with

inputs from Ritu Malhotra

"Techspan is now far more confident of targeting the next level of

people tests"

Bonnie Singh, executive director, TechSpan India, and sponsor for it’s PCMM

initiative

Bonnie

Singh 



When did TechSpan

start working on the PCMM initiative?




Even though we achieved the PCMM level 3 recently, the ground rules
for people processes were laid out in early 1999, the day TechSpan

was set up. We wanted to build an institution where employees share

the same values as founders and hence it was important to have

mature processes that would help translate values down to every

single employee. During the initial days, a lot of time was spent on

deciding small but significant things like the organization’s

culture, values and etiquette. This was the beginningof our people

processes program. However, let me clarify that our people process

initiative was not aimed at achieving the PCMM certification.

Instead, the certification is the byproduct of our initiatives.

 So

what was the trigger for the certification? Was it the desire to

showcase what you were already practicing?




Not really. By October 2000, the slowdown had hit the Indian
economy. But then, customers had also started demanding consistent

quality of deliverables in the processes. This is when the idea for

testing maturity through an external audit started gaining

importance within the company. However, we decided to go in for PCMM

rather than the software model because we felt that our people

processes were more matured. Also, we chose PCMM for its business

implications like stability, retention, knowledge retention, re—skilling,

retooling, better recruitment, quality of people and ability to

resource.

 How

difficult was the task?



After a unanimous decision to go in for PCMM certification, and

doing an analysis of where we stood, we set level-3 as a realistic

target to achieve. However, when I was given January 2002 as the

date for final assessment, my initial reaction was of nervousness.

Fortunately, we had most of the processes already in place for level

3 and hence the next step was to create a plan and a gap analysis to

identify how we would cover the rest. Also, we decided to treat the

level 3 assessment as a separate project, and laid down a detailed

plan to achieve the same. We also included pre-assessment as a part

of our plan to improve as we went along. In the long 18-month

project, education emerged as a big focus area. We also realized

that it was important to constantly educate people and make them

aware of the changes as we went along

 What

has been the learning from this initiative?




The certification has been an important milestone in TechSpan’s
journey and has helped us in addressing and tackling important

issues like career development, performance management, competency

development, training and organizational competency. The

transformation at the organizational level has been significant and

perceptible. The achievement reflects in our consistent software

delivery to customers. One of the biggest achievements at the

company level has been the value that this certification has brought

to TechSpan. Today, people tell me that this has been a truly

enriching journey that has bought TechSpanians closer. The process

has also helped us institutionalize our people process improvement

program and the certification has ensured that we will constantly

innovate and look at the new processes to sustain the current level

and target the next levels–P-CMM 4 and 5.

On the

personal front, a big achievement for me was my evolution from being

sales oriented and transactional focussed to becoming the ‘process

man’ at TechSpan.

Shubhendu

Parth

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