Stefanini, a Sao
Paolo based IT services firm has qualified for Level 5 of the SEI-CMM model - a
definite gold standard in the world of IT process maturity. NASA was the first
to be so certified. Then in 1994 Motorola's
While Indian firms may yawn about this Brazilian qualifier, the rest of us
should celebrate. Just yesterday I was talking to a CIO and he jokingly said he
would qualify at level 1. You want your vendors to be much better than you. It shows
commitment to quality and continuous improvement that none of the major
With any process discipline like Six Sigma there is overhead. The
results show up better over time. Short term to move clients from lower levels
to level 5 driven standards there is often elaborate knowledge capture and
documentation required.
Brazil is blossoming nicely as an offshore alternative. It has historically had a
strong engineering talent pool, and at least from a
