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18 January 2012 The Ministry of Agriculture moves up to level 2!

SQLI and IBM partnered the Ministry of Agriculture, food and fisheries, rural and regional planning for its CMMI® 2 evaluation.

Last June, the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries, Rural and Regional Planning became the first Ministry to obtain its CMMI® 2 evaluation! SQLI and IBM were chosen in 2008 to partner the IT Systems Sub-Directorate of the Ministry of Agriculture for its CMMI® 2 preparation and evaluation. The Ministry chose the SteeringProject software developed by SQLI as the tool for carrying out this initiative.

SQLI - RECOGNISED CMMI® EXPERTISE

SQLI's mastery of CMMI® (Capability Maturity Model Integration) is in part the culmination of its successful implementation of the model within the Group since 2002: SQLI is the first European IT service company to have attained level 3 of the CMMI® and the Group has rolled out the level 4 and 5 practices in all its agencies, a number of which are already CMMI® 5-certified. The many years of feedback amassed as a result have added to SQLI's ever-increasing reputation for cutting-edge expertise in model deployment.

It is also thanks to its business unit, Alcyonix, – an official SEI partner since 1998 – that SQLI is in a position to provide the most complete CMMI® offering in the market place, covering all the phases of cycle improvement, including awareness drives, training, diagnostics, strategy consultancy, roll-out support, evaluations, certifications and so on. Its team of experts is comprised of Senior CMMI® Evaluators and Instructors approved by the SEI.

IBM - A MAJOR CMMI® COMPANY TRANSFORMATION PLAYER

As part of the industrialisation strategy of its service centres, IBM has deployed the CMMI® model on a global scale and has attained the highest degree of process mastery in the majority of countries (level 5). In France, IBM obtained CMMI® 5 certification as early as 2005 for its internal IT, the first to do so in the country. The global intellectual capital amassed by IBM in this area, coupled with the skills acquired by its consultants in France, have led to many projects providing close support to large French organisations seeking level 2 or 3 certification.

A TRIPLE OBJECTIVE FOR CMMI® 2 CERTIFICATION
The Ministry of Agriculture called on the skills of SQLI (SQLI Toulouse and Alcyonix) and IBM for its CMMI® preparation and evaluation. SQLI Toulouse provided expertise in the construction and evaluation of the repository and IBM took charge of change management and service provision steering. Finally, Alcyonix took part in the final phase of the project, that of the actual evaluation.

Thus, SQLI and IBM worked alongside the Ministry of Agriculture in implementing a repository of processes, methods and tools common to the projects and IT maintenance, and intended to:

• be initially destined for the application engineering departments;
• cover the whole project, from launch to deployment;
• integrate practices (guides, models, tools, etc.) meeting the process field objectives of level 2 of the CMMI®.

The work carried out by SQLI's CMMI® experts also extended to deploying the repository with all the application engineering teams of the IT Systems Sub-Directorate so as to engage all those involved in all the best practices contained in the repository and to provide them with close support while the changes were made.
"We launched the CMMI® 2 evaluation as part of our project to improve our practices. With CMMI® 2, we will combine the process of improvement with external visibility in the most efficient way possible thanks to the international recognition of the model. The project began in 2008 and it took us 36 months to bring the initiative to fruition and this asked a great deal of our IT Department. This has proved to be very worthwhile because we can now deliver our projects more efficiently, adhere to deadlines with our Project Owners more tightly and share the same practice platforms", explains Jean-Luc FLAMENT, Director of the Office of Methods, Support and Quality at the Ministry of Agriculture.

CMMI® LEVEL 2 - RESULTS WITH HIGH ADDED VALUEThanks to level 2 of the CMMI®, the Ministry of Agriculture has grown in maturity and efficiency. By putting the repository in place and using SteeringProject, the Ministry is able to:

• achieve better control over its projects and budgets. Thanks to robust management of its scopes and suppliers;
• gain overall visibility thanks to its ability to rapidly supply precise indicators on projects intended both for stakeholders and for the internal use of the General Secretariat;
• facilitate working in teams through the use of common, interchangeable practices.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries, Rural and Regional Planning is the first Ministry to obtain a level 2 CMMI® certification. This is an excellent achievement both for the Ministry and for SQLI and IBM, who provided close support throughout the project.
One of the factors in the success of the project was the successful steering of the changes made which enabled the rapid adherence of the participants to the repository deployed. The "close support" approach chosen by IBM in conjunction with participative techniques proved to be extremely effective in motivating the IT Systems Sub-Directorate work community.
 

"The SQLI and IBM teams showed real commitment throughout this operation. The context of the Ministry of Agriculture's CMMI® 2 evaluation was a somewhat unusual one in that we were the first administration to obtain this certification. The collaboration between those in the IT Systems Department and SQLI was particularly fruitful. At the end of three years' work, feedback is very positive and the project leaders in particular are well aware of the added professionalism this has engendered", adds Jean-Luc FLAMENT.

The CMMI® level 2 evaluation led by Alcyonix highlighted the excellent quality of the repository put in place. For the Ministry, the CMMI® 2 certification is not an end in itself, rather it is the continuation of an initiative which will go forward as part of a second improvement project currently being studied.

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