Reference Thales Rail Signaling

We have been using Stages for six years now in an operational context and have conducted three CMM and CMMI appraisals. Stages contributed in a high degree to reach this success. Three years ago we started using the Reference Compliance Workbench and have used it for the last appraisal. Two years before the appraisal we analysed our current processes, identified the gaps and developed an action plan. Then six months before the appraisal we rechecked whether we were on target and if there still were gaps.

After closing these gaps we provided the mapping list generated by the Stages reference compliance workbench to the appraiser. This way he was able to learn about our process landscape quite easily. I think this really simplified the appraisal preparation. We have passed the appraisal and are really satisfied with the reference compliance workbench and Stages. Another advantage was that with Stages you can always see which standards will be affected when you modify the processes.

Our next step will be to integrate a rail-specific standard into Stages. In this way we can see which standards will be violated if we tailor the process for a specific project. We can discuss this with the auditor at an early stage of the project. This way we avoid finding out about eventual problems and correcting them at the end of the project.