
In this post we look at the ‘People’ domain, one of the 8 specialist interest domains in the latest version of the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI®). These domains extend the best practice in the core elements of the model by providing additional practices that are specifically related to an area of particular interest – in this case the area of people management.
This post outlines the People domain, and discusses the business value that this domain can deliver to an organization.
The original CMMI came into being as a consequence of a proliferation of Capability Maturity Models targeted at specific areas of interest. Originally, the main CMMs that formed CMMI were devoted to best practice in the areas of software and systems development. The CMMI project unified these distinct models into a single framework.
Since that initial version of the CMMI however, the Maturity Model concept continued to be used to gather and organise best practice in different problem domains and so further CMMs developed alongside the CMMI. One of these was the People CMM (P-CMM) which focused on the continuous improvement of the management and development processes of an organization relating to its workforce or human resources.
Version 3 of the CMMI was another opportunity to consolidate the information from standalone specialist CMMs into the overarching integrated framework and People-CMM was one of the models that was integrated in this way. The P-CMM was pulled apart and the common content was absorbed into the existing CMMI Core content with the specific information forming a new practice area, Workforce Empowerment, within the new specialist domain ‘People’.
The focus of the People domain is to ensure that the workforce of an organization is aligned to the fulfilment of its business objectives. In order to achieve this individuals and teams within the organization need to be appropriately empowered to fulfil their roles and further their objectives efficiently and effectively.
The practices within the Workforce Empowerment Practice Area deal with many aspects of workforce management that are not explicitly covered elsewhere in the core practices, as well as extending some of those that are.
It looks to ensure that work assigned to individuals or groups is done based on an assessment of the expertise and experience of the specific individuals and that commitment is obtained from those individuals. This necessitates that work is effectively planned and conducted, and that effective dialogue is maintained within the organisation.
The transitioning of individuals between roles can be hugely disruptive to an organization. So practices to ease such transitions (e.g. through succession planning for example) are included as are practices encouraging the establishment and maintenance of effective communication mechanism, along with appropriate staff compensation and incentivization mechanisms.
Some of the good practice established in the core practice area of Organizational Training is extended in the People domain. Practices are introduced that explore the benefits of a more structured understanding of the skills and expertise of the workforce using such mechanisms as competency frameworks.
Fundamentally, the concept of empowering the workforce to succeed in their tasks is at the heart of the People domain and it provides some valuable guidance for organizations seeking to achieve the maximum benefit from the development of their workforce.
If you wish to learn more about the People Domain, or if you are intending to be part of an appraisal team looking at it, the new Building Organizational Capability (BOC) course covers this, along with the other 7 specialist domains