Systematic process improvement using ISO 9001:2000 and CMMI

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Preface
Audience for this book
It is important that an organization understand the basic premises of the
standards it intends to adopt. The material in this book is presented in a
manner that allows all levels of an organization to benefit from it. In particular,
the following people will benefit from reading this book:
• Senior managers—making decisions on standards selection and implementation.
Senior management provides leadership, resources, and
funding for process improvement and implementation of standards.
They need to understand the underlying principles of each standard
and how their synergy can be exploited to make process improvement
more efficient and effective.
• Process improvement practitioners—developing strategies for process
improvement implementation and the transition from legacy to
revised standards. Process improvement practitioners develop the
processes and practices that will be implemented and institutionalized.
They need to identify the processes that can be improved regardless
of which standards required them.
• Evaluators—making compliance decisions and recommendations.
Evaluators compare the actual implemented processes and practices
to the standards and judge the degree of compliance. They need
to understand the interactions among standards when developing
findings and making recommendations.
• Students of process improvement—learning the features of each standard
and implementation techniques. Students explore each standard and
gain the knowledge that will help them understand why and how
those standards can be implemented so that they complement each
other.
What to expect in this book
To implement process improvement based on a standard, a model, or a
combination of models and standards, each standard or model has to be
understood in depth. Only then will a full picture of the potential process
architecture emerge. Sometimes, both frameworks require exactly the same
activities to be performed. In other cases, although the resulting activities
are the same, the requirements in each standard may be worded differently,
masking potential similarities. Quite often, requirements are at different
levels of detail, making it possible to use one standard as a guideline for the
other.