Embracing CMMI and Organizational Culture

This blog is almost turning out into a travel blog, so finally I decide to break away from the shell I had got into and finally wrote about something else :D

CMMI as we know is a model for process improvement, its not a process by itself, its a set of guidelines for organisations/units to implement their own process and help the organization to improve performance . From what I have been observing in recent times, organisations who want to adopt this should give greater consideration to decide whether CMMI is the right route for them. Its now becoming a fad and it seems that organizations get drawn to it without much consideration.

A fundamental rule for organisational acquisitions is to actually compare and contrast the core values of the two organizations involved in the merger. When the organizations in a acquisition/merger have contrasting core values the chances of failure is high. It doesn't apply only to organizations, but also to human relationships (specially the more intimate ones) where people who have contrasting core values will find it hard to get on together. Its a proven time tested fact.

In the same way when an organization wants to embrace CMMI model, they should closely scrutinize the assumptions/values on which the CMMI model is based.  As I understand the following can be considered as the core values of CMMI.

1. If commonly held values in the organization are strictly adhered to the chances of the organizational success is more. I would put it as an approach where you have a "cookie cutter" model.
2. Historical success formula is repeatable
3. Projects done are of similar nature
4. Organization is medium to big scale, where enough empathize and resourcing can be given to process improvements.
5. Large proportion of the work is expected to be done in the standardized way.

If an organization wants to embrace CMMI i think they should compare and see whether if they are already there or whether if they want to get there.