Systematic process improvement using ISO 9001:2000 and CMMI

1.3 Synergy 9
• Educated and well-trained workforce;
• Need for stakeholder involvement and customer satisfaction.
ISO 9001:2000 is a very sparse document, whereas the CMMI ® is quite
detailed. One will notice that while ISO requires process improvement, it
provides only very high-level guidance through ISO 9004:2000. Continual
improvement is addressed in new requirements throughout ISO 9001:2000,
and some organizations may not be familiar with improvement approaches.
Although senior management is required to address its commitment to continual
improvement, it is not clear how organizations will indicate that they
are continually improving. In contrast, the maturity and capability levels of
the CMMI ® help organizations chart the way toward reaching their process
improvement goals. When the ISO–CMMI ® synergy is exploited and combined
with the IDEAL SM process improvement approach, a truly unified
process improvement approach emerges.
Figure 1.3 shows an approach using ISO–CMMI ® synergy to implement
process improvement. To diagnose potential process improvement opportu-
Figure 1.3 Process improvement using ISO and the CMMI ® .