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It’s
People Power at all Levels
The Sunday Times Of India, August
5, 2001
Surprising
but it’s true. Bangalore has been chosen as the first city in the
world where the second version of the People Capability Maturity Model®
(P-CMM®) has been launched.
Based
on the lines of the Capability Maturity Model® for software (S-CMM®)
developed by the Software Engineering Institute (SEISM) at the
Carnegie Mellon University, US, this is a set of practices that help
an organization to become an employer of choice and a high
performance entity as well.
Bill
Curtis, co-author of the CMM® for software and the principal
architect of the People CMM®, who was here for the launch, spoke to
The Times of India about his pet project that has turned the tide of
performance in organizations like Lockheed Martin, US army among
others.
“This
is not human resources development. These are processes that will
help the workforce to perform better and have a higher morale. HR,
training, management are all there to act as tools to make the whole
thing work and basically it all boils down to operational management
– how the management can make the people perform better”, Curtis
said.
And,
surprisingly, it might turn out that India will have at least 6-10
companies that will be assessed of the Level 4 of the PCMM® in the
next 6 to 8 months. According to Ajay Batra, consulting partner,
Quality Assurance Institute (QAI), a joint venture between QAI, US
and INTECOS, there is not a single company in the world that has
reached the Level 4 of PCMM®.
“There
are companies like Wipro, Mastek, Datamatics and RS Software,
Calcutta, Intelligroup, Hyderabad, that are at Level 3, where
organizations start to say this is what we need, this is what we
have and begin to exploit the human capital and knowledge,” Curtis
added.
According
to Vinod Nair, analyst of McKinsey and
Co, the Indian industry is at a real low when it comes to
people management. “Most of it is lip service, maybe in companies
like Infosys or Wipro, this standard of making people perform better
exists but in the study we studied the first four of the top 10
companies and eight of the next 20 companies, there is a poignant
silence when it comes to what they have to offer to their people.”
Strangely
in India, there are no exceptionally good people management
companies like GE, where Jack Welch sits through review meetings of
the top 500 persons to decide whom he wants in which position, or
Bill Gates of Microsoft who knows in great detail about the 100
projects going in his company at any point of time.
But,
as Batra says, there is a true awakening now. “Especially at a
time when there is a slowdown and the pressure of performance is
really high in companies, it is time to take a peek into the heart
of companies. Let’s understand the issues and find solutions by
introducing appropriate processes and fix things. Even if it means
that you need to find a way to tell how those employees who are
benched how they have to perform and those who are working how they
can be better.”
And,
for Curtis, the Indian industry is where one would see the first
Level 4 companies emerging. Companies like Wipro, TCS Hughes
Software Services, Siemens Information Systems are preparing for
Level 4 assessment.
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