Saturday, September 13, 2008

Is the CMMI just for Software?

I'm so happy to have found your blog.  I have a question.  My company believes that CMMI is only related to software development and our information only web site (authoring of announcements) should not be included.  Is this true?  If not, why?

The genesis of the CMMI was indeed in software, but since its introduction in 2001 it's been pretty clear to most adopters that it is a process model for any kind of product delivery, although engineering is the most common usage.

The key here is to not assign categories of work but to ask "what is it that I have to do to deliver this product?"  
I have several clients in the "content management" business whose work revolves around placing information on the web for others to use.  They asked me the same questions - so here's what I asked them: Do they have to plan for this?  Do they have to validate that the data is correct?  That the server works?  Is there budget associated with their work and can they exceed it?  Do they need to be concerned about overwriting the data or the currency of the data? 

Just these few things encompass the CMMI Process Areas of Project Planning, Validation, Configuration Management, Product Integration, and Project Monitoring and Control (and there are certainly other things they do right?).

So, on the face of it, it appears that the CMMI is quite versatile and could apply to this scenario.  Good luck!

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