When a ISO 9001:2000 certified company goes for CMMI then definitely some questions raise into the practitioners mind, why CMMI instead of ISO 9001? Is CMMI better then ISO 9001?
There are numbers of documents available in the internet to give you clarification theoretically for those questions, but I want to share my own experience to implementing CMMI, where I also manage ISO 9001:2000 compliance processes.
- Primary focus of ISO 9001:2000 is customer satisfaction, whereas CMMI focuses on achieving organization goals. CMMI specifies Process Improvement (PI) should be done to achieve all of the organization goals.
- ISO standard description is very brief, where as CMMI model content is elaborate (better assists for process improvements). ISO requirements only ‘what’ should be done, but CMMI also specifies ‘how’ can be done.
- CMMI model has detailed information for institutionalization of processes compared to ISO contents on institutionalization. ISO is weak in institutionalization compared to CMMI (CMMI models' GGs & GPs assists for institutionalization).
- CMMI is strong in Training function, which is a very important function for any organization. Without continuous improvement of HR skill PI is very difficult. You know integration of People, Process and Technology can make an organization successful. ISO 9001 is not strong in this area.
- CMMI allows tailoring of processes. It is realistic, because for different type and size of the projects or functions same process might not be work.
- ISO requires only direct evidence from the practitioners as per standards which leads to disconnected process development and implementation. But CMMI requires both direct and indirect evidence from practitioners, which leads to develop integrated processes.
- ISO doesn’t deal with the performance of the processes, but CMMI do.
- ISO requires a MR (Management Representative), CMMI requires EPG (Engineering Process Group) which is more effective for PI.
But, for any ISO certified organization, it becomes easy to implement CMMI based process improvements as ISO brings good discipline on process approach.
You also might want to know exact mapping between ISO 9001 and CMMI. I don’t find any mapping document between CMMI V1.2 with ISO 9001. But on the SEI website, there is a document that shows the mapping between CMMI (V1.1 - the prior version) and ISO 9001. Here is the link: http://www.sei.cmu.edu/cmmi/adoption/pdf/iso-mapping.pdf
Another useful document on ISO 9001:2000-CMMI Synergy for Process Improvement is http://www.sei.cmu.edu/cmmi/presentations/sepg03.presentations/cmmi-iso.pdf
