Johannesburg, 26 Nov 2014
Compliance. It's the one critical factor that's often overlooked by local organisations when they embark on a software development project, says Anton van Heerden, general manager of Altech ISIS.
That may sound like a paradox, but there are several reasons why following a globally-adopted compliance standard has real value, particularly in industries like telecommunications with customers distributed across Africa and, often, throughout the world.
Take CMMI (Capability Maturity Model Integration) for example. High-level CMMI compliance is a rarity in a country like South Africa. That's a shame, because improving business processes - which is what CMMI was developed to address - is critical in our industry.
It all circles back to local skills, or lack thereof. If I have a team of 10 software engineers assigned to a project, my profitability hinges on correctly calculating the time it will take to complete the project. If the project is not completed to spec the first time, any additional time assigned to the team eats away at profitability. Not only that ? delays in delivering a working product almost always impact negatively on the client's profitability.
Unfortunately, in South Africa this is a common scenario, and where frameworks like CMMI are so valuable - not only to the client, but also to the vendor.
But why, you may ask, is CMMI (or any other capability model for that matter) important if you're already subscribed to a progressive development methodology like Agile, with its own checks and balances?
In this respect, CMMI compliance is misunderstood - and the reason why it's either misused or, worse, ignored altogether.
CMMI, as its name suggests, is essentially a "model". In the same way models are used to build other things (aircraft, algorithms and buildings, for instance), CMMI is used to build process improvement systems.
It is not a development standard or a development life cycle in its own right, but instead works hand-in-hand with those standards and methodologies to ensure the best possible outcome in the shortest amount of time for your particular business case. None of the different flavours (there are three) of CMMI actually contain processes themselves, nor can they be used to actually develop products, acquire goods or fulfil services.
The sole purpose of working within a framework like CMMI is to improve the performance of your standards, processes and procedures. Whether you subscribe to an Agile, Waterfall, Scrum or virtually any other development methodology, CMMI should be considered independently as an overarching blueprint for improving efficiency and productivity and reducing costs across the board.
Earlier I mentioned high-level CMMI compliance (CMMI is rated in 'Levels') is rare in South Africa. Only a handful of local vendors (including Altech ISIS) have attained Level 3 or higher ratings. But compliance alone is not a guarantor of success. Vendors must have the delivery capability to support it.
They need to be able to provide the proper testing environment for their products, and offer an end-to-end development infrastructure. They must be able to take a product from concept through design and production, and have the resources in place to support and maintain it throughout its life cycle.
While CMMI is an open standard, and almost any developer can be trained and certified, there's a reason why higher-level grading requires years of investment and application experience, making higher-level compliance the preserve of larger, more established vendors.
I don't mean this as a slight on smaller vendors, which, after all, make up a large majority of the local development community. Rather, the risk of deviating from prescribed outcomes is greater the lower or "less strict" the compliance level.
Put another way, there's far less chance for corners being cut the higher your vendor has climbed on the CMMI level ladder.
Often we speak about South African sensibilities and the unique ability of African companies in general to "make a plan" and get the job done. This freethinking entrepreneurial spirit should be embraced, but always within a proven delivery framework.
This is particularly important for companies looking to improve profitability or enhance customer satisfaction in our saturated and highly competitive telco industry.
Ask yourself what a few lines of missing code in a major new delivery platform might do to your bottom line. Then consider frameworks like CMMI as a quality guarantee and assurance in the processes you've worked so hard to develop.
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