Systematic process improvement using ISO 9001:2000 and CMMI

Acknowledgments
We both work in the process improvement field and have built careers
in that field for more than 15 years. However, the roots of our knowledge
and process understanding go back to the early days of our professional
life when we learned firsthand what works and (painfully) what does not
work.
As young engineers, we started working in separate companies, and then
worked together for many years, went in different ways, and then again
worked together. There are too many people to mention whom, in many
ways, contributed to our successes as project managers, process improvement
engineers, and software developers. However, we must mention a few that
provided leadership and encouraged us to implement a successful and efficient
approach to process improvement. Sometimes they gave us an opportunity,
sometimes they gave us encouragement, but they always drove us to
be the best that we could be. Our thanks to Gene Edelstein, Stu Steele, Ken
Nidiffer, Leitha Purcell, Richard Abbott, and Ken Kochbeck. Many thanks
to our colleagues in our own organizations and in our clients’ organizations,
where we worked together to improve processes. Our special thanks go to
Tiina Ruonamaa of Artech House, who coaxed and encouraged the writing,
reviewing, and production of the manuscript.
Today, we practice process improvement at BearingPoint and Hughes
Network Systems, respectively. We wish to express our gratitude to management
and our colleagues there who enabled us to reinforce our process
improvement approach and provided fertile ground for implementing this
‘‘unified’’ process improvement approach.
Our thanks to the many associates who contributed to our approach with
their advice. The errors, however, are all ours.
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