As a CMMI Consultant, during CMMI consulting assignment, you may be asked about the benefits of CMMI related Effective Audits, Lesser Defects, Higher Phase Containment Rate of Defects, Reduced Cost of Quality, Improvement in Customer Satisfaction. CMMI Consultants may answer this question by taking input from the post below

CMMI FAQ 0

3rd December, 2014

A study was conducted by the SEI (now CMMI Institute) on the metrics data collected from 35 large organizations across the world. These organizations having low as well as high maturity apply CMMI Process Improvement practices to their Software Engineering, System Engineering and other Engineering activities.

In this study Global Software Group (GSG) of Motorola India Electronics had grown to a staff size of 2400 employee in year 2006 which were triple to its size of 800 employees in year 2003. This was observed after initiating and maintaining CMMI Process Improvement activities in the organization.

Non-Compliances in Audits

Figure: Phase Containment Effectiveness

After the CMMI Initiative the Audit Process was automated and as a result the Non-Compliances found in the Process Audits were higher compared to earlier audits of same duration. In year 2005, the 412 non-compliances in 50 audits conducted over a period of three-months. In earlier audits of same time frame, only 109 non-compliances were found in 82 audits. It was contributed to the improve Audit Methodology adopted as a result of CMMI Implementation.

In-Process Faults

Figure: In-Process Faults

Following quantitative benefits were observed with respect to different defects related metrics:

• Even after a growing size of employee strength and project, Requirements phase containment effectiveness (PCE) of faults was sustained at 90%.
• Also there was an improvement of 8% and 12% respectively in Design and Code PCE
• Rework was reduced due to containment of more faults in the development phases.
• Due to institutionalization of the processes like CMMI Causal Analysis and Resolution, Organizational Innovation and Deployment, Technical Solution, and Decision Analysis and Resolution process areas, major in-process faults (IPF) fall down from 5.21 to 3.22 faults per KLOC (Figure 28). That means delivery of lesser defects to customers.
• There was also a drop in faults per thousand assembly-equivalent lines of code (KAELOC), from 1.5 to 0.8.

All this was attributes to the CMMI Process Improvements activities like improved Verification and Organizational Training process areas.

Cost of quality (COQ)

Figure: Cost of Quality

It was also observed that the Cost of quality (COQ) got decreased by 15 percent. It was attributed to the automation done after the institutionalization of processes related to the Verification, Validation, and Organizational Innovation and Deployment process areas

Customer Satisfaction Surveys ratings have increased from an average of 8 (very good) to 9 (excellent) out of 10. This shows an improvement in the customer satisfaction and lesser number of defects in deliveries.

This shows that CMMI Process Implementation can lead to effective audits, lesser defects, higher phase containment rate of defects, reduced cost of quality, improvement in customer satisfaction and product quality.

Source: Performance Results of CMMI®-Based Process Improvement Report.