Wednesday, December 14, 2005

India Inc - CMM Level 4

Maybe this is going to sound stupid to some of you people...

I've recently been reading and hearing too much about CMM levels in software. Any Indian software company that has the CMM level 5 certification makes sure that this is mentioned all over it's website or recruitment portals. What makes a capability maturity model... What is the difference between CMM 4 and CMM 5. My PM would probably tell you that CMM 4 means that you have effective review practices such that you can control your defects after you make them. But CMM 5 is a process that makes sure you don't make those defects in the first place. Hmmm... I'm not sure if i got that right :-) Well, anyways, that's not the point.

I was thinking of these maturity level measuring models while listening to the news. And the major headline on the news was the rain. This has been the case for so many days now in Tamil Nadu. It just struck me that we could probably have a capability maturity model for governments, administrations and countries with respect to how they react to natural disasters. A country that could predict the occurance of natural disasters and put measures in place to handle such situations would fit into CMM level 5... A country that could not predict but could take good measures (such as evacuation of people, distribution of relief) after the disaster would fit into CMM Level 4.. Just a thought. India has only now got into the CMM Level 4 category. Miles to go before we sleep...

There are probably hundreds of situations into which such maturity models could be fitted into. It is a pity that their measurement is only used as a benchmark in profit oriented and highly competitive industries such as the software industry. Not just maturity models there are dozens of processes in software that could be applied to governments and administration. Processes that help in tracking progress, tagging accountability and superior management of resources. But wait, I am talking only of the software industry here. There are numerous other industries, older ones, which have great processes and management practices. But all of these industries have one thing in common with software. They are all profit oriented industries. Only industries and institutions that are profit oriented work. Only these have what it takes to succeed. The triumph of capitalism in the world today is proof of this fact.

Governments and administrations should have an incentive to succeed. Imagine a State Government in India working all round the clock because an audit from a professional CMM audit team was due. Whew!! I'll stop here. That was beyond my imagination.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

innathu yar yaro comment adikuranga

Harini said...

God alone knows.. !!i keep getting weird comments... and don't know how to delete them either!