Offshore Captives and Process Certifications
Given that all offshore vendors in India have ISO and CMM certifications, is it advisable for offshore captives too to go in for these certifications?
Short answer is No to ISO 9001 (too generic – applies to all manufacturing and not specific to software manufacturing) and Yes to CMMI.
Consider first the motivation for going in for these certifications.
Vendors are motivated by a desire to convince buyers that they have respectable and reliable processes in place to deliver on their promises. Vendors operate in a competitive market and hence need to go for broke else the competition will beat them. This is why every single vendor in India will boast of the latest and greatest in certifications. This is a stamp of approval from an independent assessor (though CMM is a self-assessment really!) without which a vendor will not qualify to do business. This is a minimum entry criteria to the big league (and even the little league now-a-days).
Now consider a captive.
The average captive is an insider and hence by definition, respectable. The average captive does not compete head-to-head with vendors for work. The average captive does not have any pressing need to acquire certifications.
Now comes the interesting part. With sales and marketing pressures out of the way, the above-average captive can do the right thing by acquiring certifications for the real reason they are issued – to achieve capability maturity.
The Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) defines five maturity levels:
- Level 1 – Absence of formal processes
- Level 2 - Presence of management processes
- Level 3 – Presence of engineering processes
- Level 4 – Presence of metrics based management processes
- Level 5 – Presence of continuous improvement processes
There is no question that Level 2 and Level 3 capabilities will benefit any software development organization. Level 4 – well, typically metrics only confirm what managers glean from other means! Level 5 – is so vague (compared to Level 2 & Level 3) that it looks like it was put in place to make up the numbers!
If you are running a captive, here’s one possibility: aim for a CMMI Level 2 certification in the short term so that your management processes are solidified first and go for a Level 3 certification in the medium term.
There is an even better approach which is uniquely suited for Captives – move away from the staged representation of Levels 1 though 5 to a continuous representation using a target profile that best suits your captive’s needs.
What are these two representations? The following extract from CMMI for Development, Version 1.2 illustrates these two representations of the model:
Two Representations of the CMMI Model
As opposed to the well-known staged representation, the continuous representation permits a captive to pick and choose the process areas its wants to focus on and even select the level of maturity it desires to achieve for that process area!
The following Capability Level Profile illustrates this point:
Capability Level Profile
One final word to the wise: Do it right!
The spirit of CMMI requires the “institutionalization” of processes and this is where real maturity lies. In the absence of competitive pressures, captives are uniquely positioned to embark on a quest for true process maturity and not just clear a certification to get a stamp of approval!
Bonjour,
This is Praveen from Procubway.
I bounced upon your blog by chance, and i find it very informative.
Can you suggest other blogs, books for further reading.
Looking forward to meet you in person,
with best rgds,
Praveen