Before this, we already had a Quality Assurance system in place. MIND|CONSTRUCT is basically a spin-off from the software development company that Hans Peter, the founder and CEO of MIND|CONSTRUCT, has been running for the last 30 years. That system, bases on CMM (Capability Maturity Model) and developed to Level 3, was mainly aimed at custom software development for clients. Although it was sufficient for that part of the work we do now at MIND|CONSTRUCT, it was not globally oriented (taking international rules into account) and lacked certain things that are now important in our company.

MIND|CONSTRUCT needs a full-blown Quality Assurance system because we are a technology company aimed at bringing core technology to the projects and products of our clients. Many, if not most, of these companies require QA-management and -certification from their suppliers as a first requirement for doing business. CMMi (the successor of CMM) is one of the most used QA-models in software-oriented companies, and therefore the obvious choice for MIND|CONSTRUCT.

However, CMMi is more than a QA-model. It is a governing model for everything that happens inside a company. Implementing CMMi not only brings Quality Assurance certification, but also helps to build a manageable organization. This includes corporate strategies, management of personnel, procurement, and a lot more. This illustrates nicely that to build a quality product, you need to have a quality-focussed organization first. CMMi is an actual toolbox to build a better business and a great framework to get MIND|CONSTRUCT to the next level that is needed to compete commercially in our markets.

Because we want to do a complete overhaul of our system, we decided to move from CMM to the latest version of CMMi, while we are at it. This is a massive effort, and we expect it will take at least a year to reach CMMi Level 2, which is our first target. If we pull that off, it will be insanely fast, as CMMi level implementations are normally running multiple years. After that, there's Level 3.

For more info on CMMi: ISACA – The CMMi Institute