People CMM

Continuously develop the workforce maturity. Explanation People CMM.

What is people CMM? Description

The People Capability Maturity Model (People CMM) framework is maintained by the Carnegie Mellon SEI. It helps organizations to develop the maturity of their workforce, and to address their critical people issues. Based on current best practices in fields such as: human resources, knowledge management, and organizational development, it can guide organizations in improving their processes for managing and developing their workforces. It helps organizations to characterize the maturity of their workforce practices, to establish a program of continuous workforce development, to set priorities for improvement actions, to integrate workforce development with process improvement, and to establish a culture of excellence.
People CMM

People CMM provides a roadmap for implementing workforce practices that continuously improve the capability of an organization's workforce. Since an organization cannot implement all of the best workforce practices in an afternoon, a step by step approach is taken. Each progressive level of the model produces a unique transformation in the culture of an organization. In order to achieve this, organizations are equipped with more powerful practices to attract, develop, organize, and motivate its workforce. Thus, People CMM establishes an integrated system of workforce practices that matures through increasing alignment with the organization's business objectives, performance, and changing needs.

Ten principles of People CMM. Philosophy

In mature organizations, the capability of the workforce is directly related to business performance.
Workforce capability is a competitive issue and a source of strategic advantage.
Workforce capability must be defined in relation to the strategic business objectives of the organization.
Knowledge-intense work can shift the focus from job elements to workforce competencies.
Capability can be measured and improved at multiple levels. Including individuals, workgroups, workforce competencies, and the organization.
An organization should invest in improving the capability of those workforce competencies that are critical for its core competency as a business.
Operational management is responsible for the capability of the workforce.
The improvement of workforce capability can be pursued as a process composed from proven practices and procedures.
The organization is responsible for providing improvement opportunities, while individuals are responsible for taking advantage of them.
Since technologies and organizational forms evolve rapidly, organizations must continually evolve their workforce practices and develop new workforce competencies.

The People Capability Maturity Model consists of five maturity levels that establish successive foundations:

For continuously improving individual competencies.
For developing effective teams.
For motivating improved performance.
For 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.

Five stages of the People CMM framework

Initial Level. Typical characteristics: Inconsistency in performing practices, Displacement of responsibility, Ritualistic practices, and Emotionally detached workforce.
Managed Level. Typical characteristics: Work overload, Environmental distractions, Unclear performance objectives or feedback, Lack of relevant knowledge, or skill, Poor communication, Low morale.
Defined Level. Although there are performing basic workforce practices, there is inconsistency in how these practices are performed across units and little synergy across the organization. The organization misses opportunities to standardize workforce practices because the common knowledge and skills needed for conducting its business activities have not been identified.
Predictable Level. The organization manages and exploits the capability created by its framework of workforce competencies. The organization is now able to manage its capability and performance quantitatively. The organization is able to predict its capability for performing work because it can quantify the capability of its workforce and of the competency-based processes they use in performing their assignments.
Optimizing Level. The entire organization is focused on continual improvement. These improvements are made to the capability of individuals and workgroups, to the performance of competency-based processes, and to workforce practices and activities. The organization uses the established results of the quantitative management activities at Maturity Level 4, for improvements at Level 5. Maturity Level 5 organizations treat change management as an ordinary business process to be performed in an orderly way on a regular basis.