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
The ambitious plan to achieve CMMI maturity by 2011 was kicked off with a meeting run by Clyde Goldbach, SBD's Principal/COO, and Charlotte Knapp, currently SBD's Project Manager for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Charlotte, who has been with SBD since 1996, was appointed by Mr. Goldbach as the lead person in charge of getting SBD to CMMI Level 2. In attendance were Cida Goldbach (Managing Principal), Angela Mollo (Executive Assistant), Jean Wanner (EPA Program Manager), and Ricardo Silva (Director, Business Development).
"Charlotte is the perfect person for such an important task," noted Mr. Goldbach. "She has been with us for 12 years now and understands what we're all about. She's lead numerous successful projects, and was recently the key factor in SBD winning a new 8(a) ID/IQ with the EPA."
Charlotte kicked off the effort by introducing the CMMI database. With this, she fostered a dialogue about where SBD is, what is needed, and how the company will get there. "Our goal will be to limit these [CMMI] sessions to 1 - 2 hours maximum. This may take several sessions as we get educated and gear up to adopt CMMI Level 2 as a way of operating our contracts/project/task orders." said Charlotte. "The multiple short sessions will allow us to keep everyone focused and on track throughout the year."
Charlotte has put together a database to present the CMMI material, and to help evaluate the company's current state relative to employing components of CMMI. SBD's first steps are to determine what it is doing, where it has gaps, and to begin implementing a full complement of processes and procedures that are compliant with CMMI.
To SBD, CMMI is a way that a service and product development company can standardize and continually improve their processes. Government procurements are becoming more interested in whether a company is CMMI-certified. The model SBD is using, directly from Carnegie Mellon, includes how-to's and checklists for almost every process SBD might do. In addition to these processes, there are templates for everything from subcontractor management to memos to the client. These too will be part of our best practices. Mr. Goldbach uses a unique analogy behind the reasoning for 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 (i.e. our products or services). Now, one of us may have written a far superior 'recipe' in which case SBD will use that template. Otherwise, we'll have handy new templates to organize and document our work. For the down-in-the trenches troops, PM's, developers, purchasing, etc, we will be following consistent procedures and processes governed by CMMI."
Mrs. Goldbach noted that for the company as a whole, CMMI means that, "we're all going to be asked to use best-practice processes. So while the PM's and engineers work toward figuring out which processes we do and don't yet do, or which templates we'll use, Corporate will be writing policies that say, essentially, that 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," said Mrs. Goldbach. "Our clients expect us to continually improve so we can provide the best end product, on time, and within budget. Achieving CMMI Level 2 will allow us to continuously and more efficiently do such. We have a corporate level commitment to get there."
SBD's corporate goal is to be positioned to have an external audit conducted of its adoption of CMMI by the end of 2011 to, hopefully, determine that it has been successfully implemented and we perform at CMMI Level 2.
SBA 8(a), Woman Owned, Small Disadvantaged Business.
