P-CMM or People CMM

The P-CMM or PCMM or People CMM framework contains best practices on HR and people practices that can be adopted by an organization to recruit. develop and retain its human capital with highest degree of effectiveness.

Investing on human capital assumes business significance as in any kind of organization its people who, in some way, ultimately develop and deliver the product and services to the customers.

People practices assume even greater significance in the services-based organizations like hotels, airlines, etc. (where the level of human interaction that customers experience is significantly higher) and in the knowledge-based organizations like IT companies, law firms, etc. (where the human brain is the primary source driving the quality and timeliness of products and services).

PCMM is structured like other CMM/CMMI models into five maturity levels.

The journey from level 1 to level 5 is a progressive one and each maturity level encompasses additional areas that the organization needs to practice and demonstrate.

Level 1 of PCMM means adhoc, unstructured and inconsistent people processes.

And since all organizations have some level of people practices by definition that translates to level 1.

Level 2 of PCMM brings in 6 basic people practices like staffing, compensation, communication and coordination, training and development, performance management and work environment.

The focus is to ensure the basics are in place.

Level 3 of PCMM brings in 7 practices like competency analysis, competency development, competency based practices, participatory culture, work-group development, career development and workforce planning.

The focus is to use the concept of competency to drive people practices.

Level 4 of PCMM brings in 6 practices like competency based assets, mentoring, competency integration, empowered work-groups, quantitative performance management and organizational capability management.

The focus is to use data to reduce the subjectivity involved in people practices.

Level 5 of PCMM brings in 3 practices like continuous capability improvement, organizational performance alignment and continuous workforce innovation.

The focus is to drive improvement in people practices so as to improve business performance.