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Leading higher: Meeting software rating standards prepares company for the future
(Daily Oklahoman, The (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Apr. 25--Leader Communications Inc. recently received a standards rating executives believe gives the information technology and management service provider prestige that positions it for more growth.
"What it shows us is a continuous improvement and continuous learning cycle, which in the IT industry is so important because there's probably not a year -- I know there's not a year -- and sometimes there's not a month that goes by that we don't have to learn something new or use a new tool," said Angela Cole, vice president of the business services.
Leader Communications Inc. received a Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) Level 3 rating from the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University.
Based on the institute's published appraisal results, Leader Communications is the only company based in Oklahoma whose processes for software development received a Level 3 rating, said Rachael Rummage, the company's proposal writer who handles business development.
With about 300 employees, the Oklahoma City-based firm develops programs that are used to support its services to federal government agencies and provides information technology support to commercial clients.
Cole referred to the institute-approved rating as "quite an accomplishment."
"What our rating says is at a Level 3 we have the infrastructure and processes in place, not just for a particular software product that we have, but for all the products that we develop here at corporate," Cole said.
The software institute is a federally funded research and development center that conducts software engineering research and is the steward of CMMI, said institute spokeswoman Kelly Kimberland.
CMMI, which was developed by government, industry and academia experts, is a process improvement approach that provides organizations with the essential elements of effective processes.
It can be used to guide process improvement through a project, a division or an organization.
Cole said most companies initially aim for a CMMI Level 2 rating, but Leader Communications wanted to start with a higher rating status.
"There are many companies out there that have developed software that have not pursued this, but for us, it's a further external validation that our processes meet industry standards," she said.
Leader Communications was one of 560 companies worldwide that received a Level 3 rating, Rummage said.
The company also completed its appraisal in less than a year. The entire process took about nine months.
"It's not something that's done very often," Cole said. "We had never been rated, but we were very knowledgeable about where we wanted to go and how to get there. We said if we do this, we want to improve the way we're doing things, so it makes sense to us to implement the goals of Level 2 and Level 3."
Kimberland said it's not unheard of for organizations to take a "fast track" and aim for a higher level, but few companies choose to do it that way.
"It's not the typical path taken," she said. "Most organizations will work to achieve CMMI Level 2 and then move to Level 3, so it's not unheard of, but I don't think that's a common practice."
Rick Hunter, software developer at Leader Communications, followed the processes to achieve the Level 3 rating throughout the nine-month appraisal process.
"It was difficult to get my head around all the different processes, but once I started learning it, it all made sense and it really is making my job easier as a programmer," Hunter said.
"You'll find a lot of programmers will say, 'Oh, that's going to slow me down because I have to do all of this documentation,' but by doing all the documentation, you have everything lined out for you so that when it actually comes time to test it, you have met everything and you don't have any errors."
Hunter said a CMMI appraisal requires companies to develop processes first and then develop projects or software projects that follow those procedures. Then that company has an appraiser come in and verify documentation and acknowledge that the company has followed those processes.
Leader Communications' next step will be to maintain its processes, try to improve them and eventually go through a CMMI Level 4 appraisal, Hunter said.
CMMI has been adopted worldwide, including North America, Europe, Asia, Australia, South America and Africa with more than 50,000 individuals who have been trained in the introductory CMMI course offered by the SEI and its SEI Partner Network.
Copyright (c) 2007, The Daily Oklahoman
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.
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