CMMI vs ITIL

CMMI and ITIL are two distinctly different maturity models. The fundamental difference between CMMI vs ITIL is that while CMMI focuses on software process maturity, ITIL is broader in scope and focus on all areas of infrastructure, including software and hardware.

Origins

Carnegie Mellon University (CMU)’s Software Engineering Institute developed the first Capability Maturity Model (CMM) in 1990, and followed it up with the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) that integrated multiple CMMs.

The United Kingdom’s Office of Government Commerce (OGC) developed the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) in 1986 to provide guidance for service management. These set of guidelines has since then emerged as the international de facto standard framework of best practices for IT service management and infrastructure. ITIL originated as a collection of books, each covering a specific practice within the IT service management.

Scope

CMMI is a proprietary maturity model that consists of the best practices applied in the development of software, derived from the industry. CMMI segregates the best practice knowledge into five levels: initial, managed, defined, predictable, and optimizing, based on the expertise of the organization in applying such best practices. Each level progresses to higher standards and addresses the development and maintenance of products and services through the product life cycle from conception through delivery and maintenance.

ITIL is a set of comprehensive and coherent codes of best practices, and ITIL scope extend to controlling and managing all aspects of IT related operations.

Comparing CMMI vs ITIL, ITIL does not rank or grade the organization based on the extent or level of its compliance. ITIL instead offers three popular certification levels for practitioners: foundation, practitioner and service manager, based on the extent of competency of the individual in ITIL. ITIL is a non-proprietary tool that encourages the private sector to develop services and products such as training, consultancy, and tools to support ITIL.

Application

The basic difference between CMMI vs ITIL lies in application. While CMMI is focused toward software development, maintenance, and product integration, ITIL is broader in scope and provides a framework for IT service management and operations including a hardware life cycle.

CMMI is geared specifically to software development organizations and focuses on continuous improvement, whereas ITIL addresses IT operations issues such as security, change and configuration management, capacity planning, troubleshooting, and service desk functions.

While the application of CMMI helps the organization gain competency and expertise in software or product development, ITIL applications help align the entire IT process and resources of the organization to business processes.

Structure

CMMI is a prescriptive approach that orders process areas along a maturity model with maturity levels. A CMMI model is not a process but a description of effective process characteristics.

Unlike CMMI, ITIL is not prescriptive and orders the processes in sets. CMMI for instance, recommends requirement analysis but does not specify how to do a requirement analysis. ITIL on the other hand, provides solutions on how to undertake the requirement analysis.

Similarities

Both CMMI and ITIL are process maturity frameworks that follow a similar and structured approach. Both emphasize development of processes to improve product development and customer satisfaction and support the coordination of multi-disciplinary activities related to a project.

Although both CMMI and ITIL are similar in structure, the amount of duplication is, however, small and there is no contradiction between the two models, making it possible to apply both CMMI / ITIL models simultaneously in an organization. CMMI is the de facto quality standard for software development, integration, deployment, and maintenance processes in organizations and ITIL is the first choice of organizations for standards related to operations and the infrastructure side of IT.

Implementation of CMMI / ITIL also aids organizations in reducing the cost of quality, improve turnaround times, and arrive at a precise estimate of efforts required that helps in costing products.

References

    * Digite.com. CMMI to ITIL: An obvious graduation?
    * FoxIT. Introduction to The IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL).
    * Serge Thorn. ITIL and CMMI synergies

~~~ Life is an adventure where we search for the meaning of the outcome.

Innovation put into Focus

Last few months to almost a year now has been somewhat challenging for many people ( I was referring to 2009). The economic slowdown inflicted directly or indirectly from the collapse of loan system and ultimately the banking system slowly sink in to almost every industry and alerted an immediate caution in all organization and individuals alike. Given the gloom outlook, people stop buying, organization produce less, less worker needed, subsequently retrenchment is a continuous and vicious cycle that affect worldwide economy almost every 10 year cycle.

My thought would be to save up for the rainy days ahead and caution on spending my pocket money. Is there more to it? No.... wait.... What happen 5 years from now and during that time, can I or the organization I work in continue to challenge the market space and market segment we are in? Why I ask this question is because every economic downturn, and its eventual recovery (it will always recover), and at that time, where am I or my organization?

Innovation is never a one time thing, it should be ingrained in the K-economy. In the K-economy, people contribute best by inter-mixing and sharing knowledge to be put to innovative use. Knowledge on its own is of not much use, knowledge overloading would be the same as well, meaning if you do buy 1000 books and not reading it at all, is no use. Now knowledge shared and applied is the key to opening up the k-economy. The best way I can think of is then by applying and using Internet sharing and collaboration tools which by the day is increasingly entrenched into our every day life, that innovation begins to flourish. By sharing and tossing ideas with almost anyone connected to the Internet in this planet, we have a platform for success.

With the technology, we are continuously being challenged, in terms of producing our work the most efficient and effective way. We continuously improve on the things we work on and perhaps to a certain extend revolutionize the way we work. Of course the pressure on workers or entrepreneurs of our time increases as well, as more people are being enabled, those of us who did not keep striving and improving will then fall behind, especially those involved in the Internet businesses.

Perhaps it is time to move a gear and ask what can we Evolutionize in our organization today. The challenge to do so has never been stronger. And the need to do so has never been more urgent. It is interesting to see the rise of Samsung and Apple iPhone to topple Nokia and Sony Ericsson almost out of existence as far as I am concerned. Success today just takes a matter of months to be toppled, evidently from what we see with Nokia and Sony.

I can only conclude that the opportunity is great, and the challenge seems greater. Hitting success may just be a start, and if not maintained will go the very next day. We have to be on our feet, whatever we do, to ensure that we stay at the top of our game. The tools available to us today, is helping us and also putting pressure on us to buck up, as we can be easily overtaken if we do not concentrate on the tasks at hand.


~~~ Life is an adventure where we search for the meaning of the outcome.

2012 A New Lean & Agile Year

Every new year I sort of take stock what happened last year, what were the achievements and what I could have done better. Overall, we see a trending towards a leaner and more efficient way of doing things. Agile concepts and Scrum methodology flourished. A few years back, we were looking for that perfect foundation or framework to be the overarching framework of how things to be done, sort of like a unified theory of the perfect testing framework. Only for the recent trend of Agile tells us that, the only best way to get something done is to do it in small repeatable yet emphasize on transparency and openness. This is the way to go...

I personally have seen the successes in Scrum and Agile methodology in organizations. To this I would like to add, how is the software testing world adapting or taking part in Scrum or Agile. Some Scrum still leaves testing out of the sprint, some adopt testing into the sprint but seems isolated in the way testing work is done and most have no ideas. A have seen a book or 2 on how agile testing is supposed to be but to bluntly put it, it is still not very commonly practiced, at least, not in Asia Pacific.

The ever changing software industry required us to move with the pace, and I believe that software testers have to keep up with the methodology and concept and learn how to work with the agile developers now. This is the best way I know of how to provide good value to our organizations.

I wish all of you a great New Year and happy 2012: the New Lean And Agile Year.

~~~ Life is an adventure where we search for the meaning of the outcome.

Easy Handmade Gifts

Handmade gifts are gifts that can be made by people who are talented or by grade school children before they get appreciation.  Actually, there are easy items that can be transformed into great gifts for loved ones, whether it is the holiday season or special occasions.

During special times of the year, we always think of how to make our relatives happy, that it gets so tempting to spend all your carefully saved money.  Making personal gifts for your friends and family not only shows how you appreciate them but also saves you from overspending and budget deficit.

Things that we usually do, that we find uninteresting, can be transformed into great gift ideas.  Here are some great handmade gifts that you can try:

• Food gifts

Giving foods as gifts is a great way of sharing your great palate with family and friends.  You can bake cookies or bread and wrap it creatively, and those would receive it would be touched with the gesture.  You can wrap then with fabric and ribbon or just pick -out a very creative-looking container for the goodies.  You can even add the recipe with wrapping. 

Another food gift would be preserved or home-canned fruits and vegetables.  If you are somebody with produce of your own, then there are things that you can do with your harvest to make them suitable for gift-giving.  Or your can just buy organic produce in the market and home can them.

• Crafts gifts

There are many crafted items that you can give.  You can make ornaments, if it is during the holidays, then decorative gift baskets would be great.  This would showcase your creativity and skill.

It could even be bath salts and oils.  They may sound very luxurious but actually there are very easy to make.  You just need to buy some important ingredients.  There are easy steps to follow that you can find in craft books, over the internet, and other sources.   When making bath salts, you just need Epsom salts and sea salts.

You can add the oils that would give your bath salts the scent that you want. Bath oils are also very easy to make.  You just need carrier oil and the essential oil of the scent that you want.  Gradually mix the two oils together until the desired scent in reached.  You can transfer the oils to the bottles or jars that you have picked out.


Same as food gifts, decoration is the key to make your gift attractive and pleasant.  You can get decorating bottles and jars to put the items inside and you can even decorate it with ribbons. 

• Plants

If you have a lot of plants at home, then these would be great gift ideas.   You can arrange fresh or died flowers and plants as gifts.  Furthermore, there are some people who would get one of their most beautiful plants in the garden and transfer it into  pot and giving it as a gift. 

The idea that a precious plant given to somebody to care for and enjoy it, is something very touching and very special. 

• Letter writing

How does it feel when you receive a letter on your birthday saying how important you are to them?  It can be very touching.  You can write the letter in Italic or even learn calligraphy to make it more creative and beautiful.  It would not just make the gift appreciated but the giver as well.

There could be hundreds of handmade gift ideas, you just to translate these ideas into creative outputs.  Handmade gifts not only allow you to save your bucks, it also makes the receiver feel the effort, time and warmth conveyed in the personal and handmade gifts.  How great it is to receive something born out of your loved one’s hands? 

~~~ Life is an adventure where we search for the meaning of the outcome.

Systematic Innovation - Darrell Mann

I am honored to have the opportunity to meet with Darrell Mann, one of the many technical or engineering background man who is looking into technical and organizational issues and even improvement capability using a method known as Triz or better known as a systematic way of studying and applying innovation. Darrell has a lot of researcher helping him to continuously study how to innovate things with a method originated from a Russian guy.

Some of the key points during his presentation includes
- successful theory and method of successful innovation
- asking the right question is important in order to solve or even find a way to innovate.
- some tools that is going to help us do the job of innovation
- many application examples to help us see the light



Also we explored areas such as
-Why do so many software companies do the innovation job so badly?
-And essential to that, the area of business, technology and software, and in fact in many organization, opportunities missed because everyone has a silo view. For example, technical problem is perceived as a problem for the technical team only. Business unit is seldom put in to see if they can make any good of the situation..

Some ideas here may be in contrast with improvement, as Darrell mentioned that, moving forward, improvement projects may be saturated. It is time to move in with innovation, systematically.



~~~ Life is an adventure where we search for the meaning of the outcome.