CMMI for Services News and Announcements

The SEI is pleased to announce an upcoming offering of the Introduction to CMMI-SVC pilot course in Washington, DC. This three-day course will occur December 15-17, 2009. Additionally, this pilot course is deeply discounted to $900 for all attendees who register by November 30, and to $1000 for attendees registering after November 30. If you would like to register for this course, please fill out  this registration form and return it to courseregistration@sei.cmu.edu.

CMMI for Services Overview

In lean economic times, service organizations, which make up 80% of the world economy, can benefit by using process improvement to make the most of their resources to achieve desired business results. CMMI for Services (CMMI-SVC) is a guide to help service provider organizations reduce costs, improve quality, and improve the predictability of schedules.

Customers are requesting that their service providers demonstrate a CMMI rating or capability profile, but attempts to use CMMI-DEV in a service setting can distort the integrity of appraisal results. Service providers deserve the same opportunity that the development community has enjoyed for years. They deserve the opportunity to improve their processes based on community models of practice that specifically address the interests and concerns of service providers. CMMI-SVC is the model of practice that service organizations have been waiting for.

CMMI-SVC provides best practices that service providers can use when they

• Decide what services they should be providing, define standard services, and let people know about them
• Make sure they have everything they need to deliver a service, including people, processes, consumables, and equipment
• Get new systems in place, change existing systems, retire obsolete systems, all while making sure nothing goes terribly wrong with the service
• Set up agreements, take care of service requests, and operate service systems
• Make sure they have the resources needed to deliver services and that services are available when needed—at an appropriate cost
• Handle what goes wrong—and prevent it from going wrong in the first place if possible
• Ensure they are ready to recover from potential disasters and get back to delivering services if the disaster occurs

Implementation

If you are currently implementing CMMI-SVC in your organization or with a client and would like to submit a report about your experience, please use the CMMI-SVC pilot experience report template. Email the completed template to cmmi-comments@sei.cmu.edu.

CMMI for Services Topics Around the Web

To read more about one real-world implementation of CMMI-SVC, visit Bill Smith's CMMI for Services Diary blog. Bill is documenting his thinking, challenges, and experiences as he applies CMMI-SVC to his own business.

Check out this post at IT-Director.com for musings about ITIL, Agile, and process capability, with a little CMMI-SVC thrown in.

See Henry Schneider's blog for pithy answers based on experience to common user questions.

See this article in Executive Brief by Christian Hertneck and Jürgen Schmied. They report on early use of CMMI for Services, including lessons and return on investment.

Werner Achtert has written an article (in German) about how CMMI-SVC can be used to guarantee a complete implementation of IT service management processes. He also underscores the differences between ITIL and CMMI-SVC.