According to Watts Humphrey "The Actual Process is what you do, with all its omission, mistakes, and oversights. The Official Process is what books say you are supposed to do". So there are two challenges that a software development firm faces. First, to come up with reliable, efficient and pragmatic Official processes. Second, to make these processes a part of the company's culture i.e. to make the Official process the same as the Actual Process.Many software companies fall face down while trying to force the Official Process - so much so that the Official Process lies buried in company archives and the Actual Process is in no comparison with the Official Process.In a country like Pakistan ...view middle of the document...
Having worked in multinationals and also in couple of Pakistani software firms myself, it is my experience that culture in most of the Pakistani Software houses is no different than any American, Indian or European firm. If culture is not an issue than what are the factors that have slowed down induction of CMM practices in Pakistan ?I have been studying about CMM in detail, have also conducted couple of informal seminars on CMM. But it was only when I was on the receiving side of the CMM (i.e. I became a software developer myself) that I actually began to appreciate why CMM has failed to gather majority support in Pakistani software community.In the rest of the article I would try to discuss major hindrances in implementing CMM in a Pakistan software industry.CMM Certified companiesBefore I start discussing CMM in Pakistan software industry; I would jot down a few statistics to give you an idea where the rest of the word stands today.The statistics presented in this section are as of January,2002. Since new CMM certifications are issued frequently, the statistics given in this section are a moving target. Interested readers should visit [7] frequently to get the latest statistics.There are a total of 139 organizations with CMM Level-4 and Level-5 certification (these companies are called high maturity organizations). Although the list includes majority of the high level organizations; but there are a few companies that have chosen not to be listed; and hence such companies are not included in the list given below.The country wise division is given belowCountry NameLevel-4 OrganizationLevel-5 OrganizationTOTALIndia284371USA391655Russia055China022Australia202France101Ireland101Israel101Singapore101TOTAL 73 66 139According to the above table, an amazing 51% of the total of high maturity organizations are located in India.One word of caution : A company that has physically distinct development centers, has to get separate certifications for each development center. The famous Indian firm named TATA Consultancy has thirteen centers in India - it has 12 CMM Level-5 and 1 CMM Level-4 certifications to its credit; WIPRO has three Level-5 certifications to its credit . So the 71 Indian certifications, does not indicate 71 distinct Indian companies, rather a total of distinct 31 (approx) firms share the 71 certifications.Consider Motorola ,for example, Motorola Australia has CMM Level-4 certification; Motorola has two centers in China and both have CMM Level-5 certifications, Motorola also has one center in India which has Level-5 certification. So the 139 high level organizations does not depict the actual number of distinct companies.The list does not include CMM Level-2 and 3 organizations; as the list of such companies is exhaustive.A sad part of the story was that: As of Feb 2002, not a single Pakistani software firm has any CMM certification.Fortunately things have changed since March 2002. NetSol - successfully achieved CMM Level 2 certification on...