CMMI Level 2 Certification Plan

CMMI Level 2: SBD Kicks Off on Plan to Achieve Certification By End of 2008

CMMI^® (Capability Maturity Model^® Integration) is a process improvement maturity model for the development of products and services. It consists of best practices that address development and maintenance activities that cover the product lifecycle from conception through delivery and maintenance.

—CMMI Product Team, August 2006

SBD is embracing CMMI as a way to standardize and continually improve its service and product development processes. The model SBD is using comes directly from Carnegie Mellon’s Software Engineering Institute, which originated the approach, and includes how-to's and checklists for almost every process SBD might employ. It also incorporates templates for everything from subcontractor management to memos to the client. All of these tools will become part of our best practices. Clyde Goldbach, principal and COO of SBD, offers an analogy for the reasoning behind adopting CMMI. “If you use a recipe, rather than just randomly throw some ingredients together, you're much more likely to get something everyone could identify as a cake. CMMI will provide handy new ‘recipes’ to complement SBD’s own templates. For the down-in-the trenches troops—PMs, developers, purchasing agents, etc.—this means that they can be assured we will be following consistent procedures and processes governed by CMMI.”

Charlotte Knapp, currently SBD’s project manager for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), has been tapped to be in charge of getting SBD to CMMI Level 2. “Charlotte is the perfect person for such an important task,” notes Clyde. “She has been with us for twelve years now and understands what we’re all about. She’s led numerous successful projects, and was recently the key factor in SBD winning a new 8(a) ID/IQ with the EPA.”

Managing principal Cida Goldbach points out that with CMMI, all divisions of SBD will be united in the development of best-practice processes. “While the PMs and engineers work toward figuring out which templates we'll use, Corporate will be writing policies that outline how we're all going to use the process and templates we eventually select.

“Think ‘continuous improvement’ as a way to refer to progression up the levels,” Cida continues. “Our clients expect us to continually improve so we can provide the best end product, on time, and within budget, and achieving CMMI Level 2 will allow us to do this most effectively. We have a company-wide commitment to get there.”

SBD’s corporate goal is to have its adoption of CMMI audited externally by the end of 2008 to confirm successful implementation.