CMMI Pilot Companies Visit India
10 April 2008
By Professor Barry Dwolatzky, JCSE Director
As part of its “Bringing CMMI to South Africa” programme the JCSE organised a study tour to India in February.
Most readers will know that the “Capability Maturity Model Integration”, or CMMI, is a framework that both measures the maturity of an organisation’s processes and provides a roadmap for process improvement. CMMI assigns a “maturity level” to an organisation’s processes between one and five, with level five being the highest rating. Although CMMI originated in the USA, more than half of the level five companies in the world are in India.
Over the past year the JCSE has been working with a group of local companies to assist them in process improvement initiatives based on CMMI. These “pilot companies”, now twelve in number, are hoping to be assessed at CMMI Maturity Level 2 or 3 within the next 12 to 18 months. The JCSE, as the South African partner of the Software Engineering Institute, the USA-based custodian of CMMI, is providing training, consulting and assessment services to the pilot companies.
As part of its support for the CMMI adoption programme, the JCSE decided to organise a tour to India for some of the pilot companies. Between February 23rd and March 2nd, a party of nine visited Mumbai, Bangalore and Pune. The group included representatives from Cell C, GijimaAst GMSI , BSG, African Defence Systems and the Department of Trade and Industry. The tour was led by myself and Lance Stewart, Project Manager of the JCSE’s “Bringing CMMI to SA” programme.
In Mumbai, we met with senior officials from the South African High Commission, who gave an overview of the Indian economy and outlined India’s relationship with SA. In Bangalore (the ‘Silicon Valley’ of India) the group visited IBM (India), Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Satyam. At each of these level five companies there were opportunities to discuss CMMI and process improvement issues with senior process managers. In Pune, the group was hosted by Nihilent, an Indian-based level-5 software company owned by South Africa’s Dimension Data.
All participants on the study tour found it extremely valuable and worthwhile. On returning from the trip Willem Janse van Vuuren, from GijimaAst GMSI, said “The JCSE will need to play a significant role to assist small companies to implement CMMI. It is a lot of work and small companies will struggle to carry all the overhead cost.” He also said, “The success, energy, growth and technology explosion in India cannot be explained on paper or on film. South African executives need to experience it for themselves.”
Later in 2008 the JCSE will be arranging another similar tour to India, aimed at introducing high level Government officials and top executives from industry to the benefits of CMMI. Anyone interested in joining this tour should contact the JCSE.