Applying People CMM to Your Organization-Part 1 - Essay Example

Applying People CMM to Your Organization-Part Toyota Toyota is a car manufacturing company known for its management philosophy and innovation. It has achieved success using its lean manufacturing process while other companies have tried the same process, but still fails. It is also known for its mass-market hybrids. Just like any other company, Toyota has its own practices, principles and problem solving techniques. In its quest for success and sustainability, the company has implemented a continuous improvement culture, which as described below, can benefit from the people CMM (Toyota, 2014).

The Organization’s need for people CMMToyota developed a lean manufacturing process, and has been using this process to achieve its competitive advantage. The company also recognized the need for a continuous improvement culture in order to sustain the process. Because of that, Toyota selects the brightest and best workers within the organization, from all levels, and challenges them to use their proposals and creativity to experiment and learn. This is a challenge that puts the workers through a constant problem solving state, and encourages them to grow in their jobs.

Every specialty, for example; engineering, accounting, sales, service, and human resources, are equipped with skills which the company refines to achieve customer satisfaction. This continuous improvement culture could use people CMM for the company to achieve its targets (Toyota, 2014). Continuous improvement means the company will always have changing aims to meet. There should be a system of ensuring these aims are met, and this is where the people CMM come in. It provides staged improvements through which the organization’s culture can be changed.

People CMM is a model of change that focuses on improving workforce practices. It has five levels of maturity, and these act as guidance through change. If Toyota, for example, wants to change the culture of the organization to a continuous improvement focused, it will make use of the maturity levels to meet its targets. The model describes an evolutionary process through which companies go through to achieve quality and effectiveness. Maturity levels determine the characteristics of the organization.

Toyota, for example, already established a continuous improvement culture which it has to maintain. It means that the company has passed the initial level, the managed level, and the defined level. The initial level is all about the inconsistency of the practices. Toyota has a consistent practice of identifying the best skills, and guiding them through problem solving activities to develop new ideas and improve the company’s processes. At level two, critical skills are identified for each unit.

Toyota already has a consistent practice of identifying the best, which the company uses to develop new ideas. This is well managed. Then there is level three of maturity where the organization implements the right infrastructure that will support the newly adopted practices, to ensure an alignment of the organization’s strategic objectives and the workforce capability. There is also the predictable level where the company can manage its performance and capability quantitatively, and the optimizing level where the company focuses on continual improvement (Curtis, Hefley & Miller, 2003).

Benefits that Toyota gets from People CMMThe People CMM will provide more than a human resource management framework. It will provide a framework for process management if based on competency processes; strategic planning; and measurement and analysis of performance at all levels ensuring an alignment of performance across the organization. The people CMM also ensures cultural changes that lead to long lasting improvements (Curtis, Hefley & Miller, 2003).ReferencesCurtis, B., Hefley, W. E. and Miller, S. A. (2003).

Experiences applying the people capabilitymaturity model. The Journal of Defense Software Engineering. Retrieved from:http://www.crosstalkonline.org/storage/issue-archives/2003/200304/200304-Curtis.pdfToyota. (2014). Toyota Traditions. Retrieved from:http://www.toyota-global.com/company/toyota_traditions/