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Stamped for Quality

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DQI Bureau
New Update

Whenever the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) rolls out a new quality

standard, it is most likely that an Indian company achieves it first. In keeping

with this trend, Chennai based Polaris Software Lab has become the first company

in the world to be assessed at Level 5 of the Capability Maturity Model

Integrated (CMMI). This model is the latest quality standard released by SEI in

December 2000. As the name suggests, CMMI functions in an integrated fashion

unlike its predecessor- software CMM. What differentiates software CMM from CMMI

is that the former looks at the activities and processes in isolation and CMMI

lays stress on quantitative and statistical methods.

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Says Arun Jain, CMD, Polaris Software Lab, "CMMI certification is the

result of the combination of our strategies like organizational redesign, world

class infrastructure, progressive management, business processes and global

reach falling in place. With the current downturn in the software services

industry, outsourcing is becoming a competitive advantage for many companies.

Given this trend, we gain a rightful edge of being the world’s first CMMI

level 5 company."

The certification assumes significance for Polaris, as it comes at a time

when software development companies are feeling the pinch due to the decline in

IT spending. Retaining clients has become a challenge. Says Arun Jain,

"Today, clients conduct elaborate studies before entrusting their IT

activity to a particular company. They check on the service providers

credentials based on the quality standards they have in terms of HR, business

processes, delivery etc. The CMMI certification thus becomes an ideal platform

in positioning ourselves as a software company of repute in the global

arena."

Early adopter’s edge

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Value-adds

from CMMI

The branding and value

that a company derives from CMMI certification are:

  • Focussed movement

    towards business objectives

  • Quality and business

    objectives tightly interlinked

  • Higher Productivity n Return on

    investment
  • Cost Schedule n Defect

    elimination For clients of certified companies, it means:
  • Better quality products

Why is CMMI critical to IT companies? The holistic approach of this process

ensures that the maturity level of the company is defined across the board. For

instance, the CMMI Level 5 certification will usher in clear benefits for

overall process improvement at Polaris. CMMI enables decreased defect levels,

increased productivity and a sustained value addition for the clients. Says

Govind Singhal, executive director, Polaris, "The benefits to clients will

be evident in the long term and will provide us with a sustainable competitive

advantage."

Analysts predict that there will be a rush for CMMI certification down the

line as SEI intends to phase out software CMM in two years and will not provide

any updates henceforth. That leaves little choice for software companies but to

migrate to CMMI. SEI classifies the migration pattern under two heads. Companies

looking at gaining a competitive advantage will immediately realign their

processes towards CMMI. These are companies with proven quality processes in

place and hence migration to CMMI becomes a logical necessity with benefits

exceeding the costs. SEI believes that these early adopters will drive the

quality standard and accumulate benefits such as continued maturation,

reliability and performance. The second wave of migration will be from companies

with the "show me first" attitude. After seeing the benefits derived

by the CMMI early adopters, they will initiate quality audits for CMMI. SEI is

confident that migration in large numbers will happen by 2002.

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With this benchmark in place, Polaris intends to close the year with a

turnover of Rs 300 crore. For the half-year ended September 2001, revenues stood

at Rs 143 crore.

What’s special about CMMI?

The CMMI model provides guidance for improving an organization’s processes

and abilities to manage the development, maintenance and acquisition of software

and systems in an integrated manner. CMMI is the latest in the series of models

developed under the stewardship of the Software Engineering Institute (SEI), a

federally funded research and development center sponsored by the US Department

of Defense and operated by Carnegie Mellon University. The model defines how to

make an organisation mature. The maturity is addressed at each level, and each

level provides a capability. The CMMI model scores over the SW-CMM model with a

larger number of process areas, goals and practices. This helps companies in

enhancing organisation process and measurement repository.

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Process

Capability at CMMI Maturity Levels

Level 1:  Organizations

frequently produce products that work; but often greatly exceed the budget

and schedule of the project.
 
Level

2: 
Organizations

have planned processes, documented, performed, monitored and controlled at

the project level.
Level

3: 
Organizations

use a defined set of standard processes, which form the basis for

establishing consistent processes across the organisation.
Level

4: 
Processes

are predicted and controlled using statistical and other quantitative

techniques. Product quality and process performance are understood in

statistical terms and are managed throughout the project life cycle to

achieve defined quantitative objectives established for the project.
Level

5: 
Organizations

focus on continually improving the process performance through both the

incremental and innovative technological improvements. Quantitative

process improvement objectives for the organisation are established,

continually revised to reflect changing business objectives and used as a

criteria in managing process improvement. This means that the processes

are concerned with addressing the common causes of process variation and

changing process to improve performance. 

The CMMI model is designed to describe discrete levels of process

improvements that can be initiated and sustained in a software organisation. The

maturity levels provide a recommended order for approaching process improvements

in stages so that not all process areas are addressed at the same time. The

maturity level of an organisation provides a way to predict the future

performance of an organisation within a given discipline. Achieving each

maturity level results in an increase in the process capability of the

organisation. Each maturity level forms a foundation for the ongoing process

improvement and they are numbered one to five viz. Initial, Managed, Defined,

Quantitatively Managed, and Optimizing.

G Shrikanth in Chennai Inputs from

Shubhendu Parth in New Delhi

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