The Test Maturity Model Integration (TMMi) is a framework that is developed to complement the existing Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI). It provides a structured presentation of maturity levels, allowing for standard TMMi assessments and certification. It enables a consistent deployment of the standards and collection of industry metrics. The TMMi has a rapidly growing uptake across Europe, Asia and the USA and owes its popularity to being the only independent test process measurement method.

The independent TMMi Foundation initiative has been established with the sole intent of developing the TMMi standard. The model it promotes can be used in isolation or in support of other process improvement models. It provides an independently managed data repository to support TMMi assessment method accreditation. It also provides Assessment Method Accreditation/Audit Framework for TMMi in accordance with ISO15504 and the process to certify commercial assessment methods against the standard model. Further it provides the certification and training/examination process, procedures and standards for formal, public accreditation of Assessors and Lead Assessors and the on-going management.

As with the CMMI staged representation, TMMi has a staged architecture for process improvement. It contains stages/levels from 1 to 5 through which an organization passes as its testing process evolves from one that is ad-hoc and unmanaged, to one that is managed, defined, measured, and optimized.

In September 2008 AppLabs became a supporter of the TMMi Foundation, after having ensured that the objectives of the TMMi Foundation were compatible with our views and objectives. This initiative was valuable to us as a company, to the testing industry as a whole, something which AppLabs could add a valuable contribution to and help advance. As AppLabs was already a CMMI Level 5 company, the TMMi alignment with CMMI proved beneficial.

On the whole, these industry metrics and information are sorely missing from the software quality management industry and AppLabs would like to be a key driver in rectifying this process outage. The decision was not taken lightly though, as there were and indeed still are some negatives. The TMMi Foundation is still busy defining the TMMi Levels, at the time of AppLabs decision to support the Foundation, only Level 2 was available. Level 3 has since moved on, but there is still significant work to be done on Levels 4 and 5. There is no guarantee that the ‘Industry’ will recognize this model, despite these negatives, AppLabs still felt it was a valuable investment and could reap rewards for all sponsors of the TMMi Foundation, including AppLabs, but more importantly, for the testing industry as a whole.

AppLabs is currently in the process of accrediting our TMMi model and our experienced Test Consultants with the TMMi Foundation. AppLabs will be offering TMMi reviews as part of our Consultancy Service line in the near future.

Warranty Statement:

The TMMi Foundation makes no warranties of any kind, either expressed or implied, as to any matter included, but not limited to, warranty of fitness for purpose or merchantability, exclusivity, or results obtained from use of the material. The TMMi Foundation does not make any warranty of any kind with respect to freedom from patent, trademark or copyright infringement.

The published material is produced with the permission of the TMMi Foundation. Contents should not be reproduced without the permission of AppLabs and the TMMi Foundation. TMMi® is a registered trademark of TMMi Foundation.

Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are amongst the most strategic decisions that are taken in the corporate world. The directors of companies that engage in the M&A arena must ensure that they take all practical steps to ensure that shareholder value is at least preserved, and are ideally enhanced by the M&A process. They have to be aware of the potential for criminal and civil proceedings from regulatory bodies or shareholder groups if their corporate governance is called into question in matters of transparency and performance.

In order to maximize the potential for adding shareholder value to a merger or acquisition, not only should the financial strategy be sound but there should be strategic reviews of all areas of operation of the resulting corporate entity. Apart from formulating a change program within the new corporate entity, operational efficiency across the organization and a corresponding quality assurance is highly necessitated. And this is realized with an independent IT testing organization that would bring the benefits of objectivity, experience and expertise in strategy and operational implementation that will deliver cost effective risk mitigation, which will ensure delivery of IT systems that enable organizations to compete globally in a constantly changing corporate landscape.

IT systems underpin the successful operations of all departments: sales, marketing, HR, and all supply chain activities would not function effectively without robust and reliable IT systems aligned to deliver the functionality relevant to the respective department. And, in an M&A situation, major change programs usually result in a level of IT change and development that is far larger than the size of the projected business.  In order to effect the IT change, in the timescales required to deliver the enhanced shareholder value promised in the M&A strategy, it is almost always the case that external IT suppliers are required to provide the additional resources required to implement the IT change program. All this is possible only with robust and reliable IT systems, which mandates testing as its process.
Today there are two major test strategies in play within most IT dependent companies- the requirements based testing, appropriate when there is a major application refresh within an otherwise stable organization, and risk based testing, when change is required in every area of the new business.

In an M&A scenario, coercion of software, new to the existing customer is, unfortunately, an option. A user acceptance test at such a juncture is the best practice in IT development or procurement; it makes good business sense too.
The business value of a company resides in the data stored within the systems and the applications, and these data vary from system to system and application to application. Sometimes as binary data in a database, or may be held as human readable text files, or it might be transmitted between applications in an XML schema. In an established IT environment, the same data will exist in multiple locations and formats. Extending the IT environment with a new interface, system or application will require that the existing data maintains its validity as it moves from one place to another, and for the same data migration testing is required.

Operational IT costs account for 70-80% of most organization’s entire IT budget, and hence companies should focus on their operational SLA (Service Level Agreements) (SLAs) with the business units, and for this the IT infrastructure should undergo the Operational Acceptance test, which involves technical testing such as interoperability, disaster recovery tests, security testing and various forms of performance testing such as load and stress tests to ensure that the systems are available, responsive and resilient to the levels required by the business.

For an efficient and effective running of the merged or acquired organization, robust and reliable IT systems is a must, and the benefits of these is realized with an independent IT testing organization.