CMM, Essay Example

Discuss the role of process standardization such as CMM and quality standards in off shore outsourcing.

Up until recent times, most of the off shore outsourcing has been taken with the primary objective of cost savings. Not surprisingly, almost half of the companies are not satisfied with their vendor relationships. Capability Maturity Model (CMM) is a process management standard that enables us to measure progress in software engineering as well as compare the software processes used by external software providers. It consists of 5 levels (initial, repeatable, defined, managed, and optimizing), with each subsequent level representing greater management control and process management capabilities.

Software vendors from India, China and other major outsourcing centers see CMM’s level 5 qualification as the key to winning global customers and increasing their software exports.  The continuous adoption of CMM would lead to further standardization of software engineering processes on a global scale, not only resulting in the standardization of software engineering processes but also higher efficiency as has happened in certain other industries. CMM also decreases errors and overall development durations, thus, significantly reducing software development costs. The proportion of organizations that were appraised at level 5 increased from 0.3% in 1992 to 6.6% in 2004, clearly demonstrating the speed at which the standardization of software engineering processes has been taking place.

Because CMM has the backing of some of the worlds largest outsourcing clients such as US Defense Department, the size of contracts in themselves produce huge incentives to adopt CMM standards. CMM is flexible, easy, and covers most software organizational structures. CMM has inspired standardization of processes in other business domains, too and there are believed to exist at least 180 versions. Thus, CMM will further expand the outsourcing industry because it makes it possible to compare vendors not only on cost basis but also quality basis by insisting that certain software engineering processes are implemented. In addition, it will lead to shorter durations, improved quality and further cost savings by reducing rework and errors. In short, CMM will bring more or less the same credibility to software industry that ISO 9000 standards have bestowed upon the manufacturing industry.