CMMI acreditation - what are the alternatives for accrediting an organisation for their BA skills
All,
I have just been asked to look at getting my team of Business Analysts Accredited by CMMI (Capability Maturity Model Integration). The idea being to show that our processes for Requirements Management are world class.
Does anyone have any experience of CMMI accrediation in the requirements arena? What were the pro's and con's? Do you feel it has made a positive difference? It looks like a heavy weight process but is it value for money?
Also, are there any alternatives out there to CMMI? I know that there are Chartered/Accredited Business Analyst qualifications, such as the one offered by the IIBA, but there are geared at accrediting an individual. What we want to do is show that our processes and organisation as a whole are world class when it comes to Requirements Managment. Does anyone other than CMMI offer this?
All thoughts, opinions and guidance are much appreciated !
Thanks,
Emma
Some Inconvenient Observations
Some observations:
1. The SEI gets a very large portion of its funding from the US DoD. The US DoD has been shown to be one of the least effective organizations, if not the worst, at software development.
2. IT service firms (e.g. Wipro, Infosys, IBM Global Services, ...) are motivated to get CMMI certified for marketing purposes. i.e. "We're CMMI level X, therefore we're really good" is a common marketing message.
3. Non-IT service firms (i.e. banks, retailers, manufacturers, ...) are often motivated to adopt CMMI so that they can interface effectively with CMMI IT service firms. This in turn enables them to more easily outsource portions of their IT department. From what I've seen, CMMI level 3 is pretty much the bare minimum accredidation because by that point you've gotten your technical and management acts together.
4. The more specialized the job function (e.g. BAs, Testers, ...) the easier it is to outsource the function. Specialized job functions effectively have defined interfaces. The BAs do this sort of work, provide this sort of information to these other functions, ... Once you've got the job function well defined and isolated it becomes easier to reimplement it elsewhere in the world.
5. Being on the "front end of the process" might not save you from being outsourced. The true front-end is the business managers making the decision to fund the project/program. From that point it's a decision as to who is going to do what work.
6. The most successful outsourcing projects seem to be the ones where the most work has been outsourced. Keeping your fingers in the pie seems to increase the cost of outsourced projects.
My point is that with CMMI you may be playing with fire and not realize it.
To put things into context for you: I was the lead methodologist who put together the OOSP, the first publicly published CMM Level 5 compliant process (if you instantiate the whole thing). I've worked in various CMM/I orgs around the world and have consulted to level 4/5 orgs to help them improve their approaches.
- Scott
Scott W. Ambler
Practice Leader Agile Development, IBM
http://www-306.ibm.com/software/rational/bios/ambler.html