People Capability Maturity Model
The People Capability Maturity Model (People CMM) is a framework that helps organizations successfully address their critical people issues. Based on the best current practices in fields such as human resources, knowledge management, and organizational development, the People CMM guides organizations in improving their processes for managing and developing their workforces. The People CMM helps organizations characterize the maturity of their workforce practices, establish a program of continuous workforce development, set priorities for improvement actions, integrate workforce development with process improvement, and establish a culture of excellence. Since its release in 1995, thousands of copies of the People CMM have been distributed, and it is used worldwide by organizations, small and large.
The People CMM consists of five maturity levels that establish successive foundations for continuously improving individual competencies, developing effective teams, motivating improved performance, and shaping the workforce the organization needs to accomplish its future business plans. Each maturity level is a well-defined evolutionary plateau that institutionalizes new capabilities for developing the organization's workforce. By following the maturity framework, an organization can avoid introducing workforce practices that its employees are unprepared to implement effectively.
Structure of People CMM
The People CMM document describes the People CMM, the key practices that constitute each of its maturity levels, and information on how to apply it in guiding organizational improvements. It describes an organization's capability for developing its workforce at each maturity level. It describes how the People CMM can be applied as a standard for assessing workforce practices and as a guide in planning and implementing improvement activities. This document provides guidance on how to interpret its practices.
The first part of the document describes the rationale and evolution of the People CMM, the concepts of process maturity, the structure of the model, how to interpret the model's practices, and case studies of results.
The second part of the document contains the key practices of the People CMM ¾ the individual, managerial, and organizational practices that contribute to maturing workforce capability. These practices describe an evolutionary improvement path from ad hoc, inconsistently performed practices, to a mature, disciplined development of workforce competencies, just as the CMM for Software describes an evolutionary improvement path for the software processes within an organization.
The third and final part of this document contains the appendices.
Version 2 of the People CMM has been designed to correct known issues in Version 1, which was released in 1995; to add enhancements learned from five years of implementation experience; and to integrate the model better with CMMI® and its IPPD extensions. The primary motivation for updating the People CMM was the error in Version 1 of placing team-building activities at Maturity Level 4. The authors made this placement based on substantial feedback that it should not be placed at Maturity Level 3, as it had been in early review releases. Experience has indicated that many organizations initiate formal development of workgroups while working toward Maturity Level 3. Thus, Version 2 of the People CMM initiates process-driven workgroup development at Maturity Level 3. This change is consistent with the placing of integrated teaming activities at Maturity Level 3 of the CMMI-IPPD.
In addition, the authors have made other improvements in Version 2 to bring the People CMM closer to its maturity framework roots in process-driven organizational improvement. An institutionalization goal has been added to each process area to better align the goal structure with that used in the CMMI. Many of these improvements will make it easier for organizations to integrate People CMM-based improvements with CMMI-based improvements.
Version 2 of the People CMM is being produced only in a staged representation. After lengthy review of the literature and experience gathered from implementors on programs to improve workforce practices, the authors determined that these programs often fail when workforce practices are not introduced as a system of practices or in reinforcing bundles, but rather are deployed in isolation. For instance, efforts to install empowered teams are likely to fail if compensation practices continue to reward individual performance without recognizing contribution to team performance and team success.
