Not long after I had gotten off a call with Kathy discussing her upcoming IAAP webinar, Where is Your Organization on the Accessibility Maturity Scale, I was sitting on my back deck with my family when my youngest son declared he had a sugar craving and emerged from a plastic shopping bag with a family size bag of Skittles. He grabbed two sides of the candy bag, bared his teeth and pulled. All of us more mature members of his family prophesized an explosion of colorful candies and a rainbow of fruit flavors raining onto our composite decking. We warned against his improvised process and suggested an approved process, which was to use kitchen scissors to cut open the top of the bag, but we were ignored. The final results were less than ideal.
I realized us old folks had a mature process for opening a candy bag and he did not. I also realized this small event on my back deck was similar to situations many organizations face when implementing something new. A bag of exploding candy and someone standing over the mess looking perplexed is a perfect visual analogy for what happens in organizations when immature processes are improvised during a project. And, for many organizations accessibility is growing in importance and has become the new thing needing to be implemented.
For something as important and involved as accessibility there needs to be a model in place to ensure it matures. What does maturity vs. immaturity look like within an organization?
Characteristics of immaturity:
- Process improvised during a project
- Approved process being ignored
- Reactive, not proactive
- Unrealistic budget and schedule
- Quality sacrificed for schedule
- No objective measure of quality
Characteristics of maturity:
- Inter-group communication
- Work accomplished according to plan
- Practices consistent with process
- Process updates as necessary
- Well-defined roles & responsibilities
- Management formally commits
Using a Capability Maturity Model (CMM) and Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) as defined by Carnegie Mellon University can help an organization mature their processes so that they are:
- Well-defined
- Repeatable
- Measured
- Analyzed
- Improved
- Effective
In her webinar, Kathy will discuss Accessibility Maturity in the context of the CMM and CMMI as well as other highly effective models. Discover where your processes for accessibility lie and how to move them to the next level of maturity. Are your Skittles all over the deck or are you using scissors? Register for the webinar now.
Webinar: Where is Your Organization on the Accessibility Maturity Scale?
Date: Tuesday, June 27, 2017
Time: 11:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. Eastern (UTC – 4 hours)
Length: 1.5 hours
Speaker: Kathleen Wahlbin, CEO and Founder of Interactive Accessibility
Skill Level: Beginner
Registration
Fees: Member*: $39; Non-Member: $79