The approach, developed by KPMG Consulting, provided a framework for the study team (two people from KPMG who interviewed more than 30 Cisco employees) to organize WPR into eight major functions--Office Automation Tools; Web-Based Employee Self-Service Applications; Strategic Planning/Enterprise Management; Finance/Accounting Applications; Transaction/Lease Management; Project Management Applications; Space Management and Occupancy Planning; and Facilities Management and Building Operations--and then break each of those down into its component processes and sub-processes. They ended up with more than 200 sub-processes.

Project Management, for example, was divided into five processes: initiate, plan, execute, control, and close. Each of those had about 10 sub-processes.

According to David Clute, who authored the report for KPMG and who now works as manager of E-Solutions for Cisco's Workplace Resources group, the study ranks the status of each Cisco process on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being the least mature system, and 5 representing the highest level of maturity. The average of all maturity levels within a single function is then calculated to create a Capability Maturity Index.

SEI's Capability Maturity Model for Software, published in "Guidelines for Improving the Software Process" (Addison-Wesley Longman, 1994), describes the five maturity levels as:

1) Initial. The software process is characterized as ad hoc, and occasionally even chaotic. Few processes are defined, and success depends on individual effort and heroics.

2) Repeatable. Basic project management processes are established to track cost, schedule, and functionality. The necessary process discipline is in place to repeat earlier successes on projects with similar applications.

3) Defined. The software process for both management and engineering activities is documented, standardized, and integrated into a standard software process for the organization. All projects use an approved, tailored version of the organization's standard software process for developing and maintaining software.

4) Managed. Detailed measures of the software process and product quality are collected. Both the software process and products are quantitatively understood and controlled.

5) Optimizing. Continuous process improvement is enabled by quantitative feedback from the process and from piloting innovative ideas and technologies.

According to data previously gathered by SEI, 60 percent of the companies it had surveyed ranked at Level 1 or lower for those processes surveyed. Cisco set for itself a goal of Level 3; anything higher would show a diminishing return for the investment of time and money, Clute explains.

Cisco's May 2000 study showed 27 subprocesses within project management to be at Level 1 and 25 at Level 2, for a Capability Maturity Index of 1.48. Clute says those systems had barely been implemented at the time of the study and already are much improved. WPR excelled in Office Automation Tools, with an index of 3.56. Employee Self-Service Applications also ranked very high with an index of 2.97.

The results of this first study now serve as internal benchmarks against which these systems will be measured annually, explains Clute. WPR supports a program of continuous process improvement and updates internal metrics for each major initiative on an annual basis.

--LW

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