Allianz Cornhill first UK insurance company to achieve CMMI Maturity Level 3 appraisal
Allianz Cornhill implements Planview Enterprise to boost productivity with world-class quality rating for software development
on 22 January 2007
Allianz Cornhill, one of the UK’s leading insurers, is the first UK insurance company to be appraised at Maturity Level 3 of the Software Engineering Institute’s Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI). The company received a world-class rating with the help of Planview Enterprise, software implemented to plan and consolidate processes and make software development consistent across Allianz Cornhill’s onshore and offshore development teams.
Attaining CMMI Maturity Level 3 demonstrates Allianz Cornhill’s ability to produce high quality software systems. These systems are a vital cornerstone of the company’s strategy to win in the competitive insurance market by developing innovative products, bringing them quickly to market and delivering excellent customer service. New systems have to be developed whilst keeping costs to a minimum and achieving maximum productivity in application development.
Allianz Cornhill has approximately 250 software developers spread across several UK and offshore locations, presenting particular challenges in the management and control of development projects.
“Planview provides a highly disciplined workflow for planning and controlling multiple projects throughout their lifecycles,” says Linda Booth, IT Quality Assurance Manager at Allianz Cornhill. “It is a powerful, easy-to-use tool with consistent templates that ensure processes are followed and repeated throughout the organization. It also captures historical project data at an enterprise level for analysis and business improvement. Planview has played a pivotal role in our high rating in the CMMI Maturity Level 3 appraisal. Our processes are very easily audited and we have great visibility and transparency of project performance.”
In achieving CMMI Maturity Level 3, Allianz Cornhill embedded standard software development processes within Planview as consistent lifecycle workflows. Software developers are given standard templates and guided through structured processes to complete each project. This provides uniform processes that enable individuals in different parts of the organization to quickly pick up or hand over projects from one team to another. Planview develops full project performance metrics which satisfy the requirement within CMMI Maturity Level 3 for continuous improvement.
Allianz Cornhill has now completed its second CMMI Maturity Level 3 appraisal. The first covered mainframe, web and MIS systems, involving some 100 live projects each requiring, on average, 120 man-day’s effort. A second appraisal covered the entire software development environment, including Oracle, finance and engineering systems.
Gary Mason, Head of Systems Development for Allianz Cornhill, concludes: “This accreditation is a great achievement and a cornerstone in our desire to provide a world-class, highly professional IT service to Allianz Cornhill.”
* Reference the SEI maturity profile website
About Planview
Since 1989, Planview has been a market leader and trusted partner in software for comprehensive IT management. Our flagship product, Planview Enterprise™, brings the most comprehensive IT management solution to the market, combining adaptive IT management best practices, best of breed resource management and portfolio management software. Planview enables business leaders to integrate the decision-making process to improve alignment of IT resources with business strategies. We serve an active and growing global customer community of over 400 organizations in the financial, insurance, healthcare, government and other industries. Planview is privately held and has been profitable for over a decade.
For more information visit www.planview.eu
About Allianz Cornhill
Allianz Cornhill is one of the UK’s leading general insurers and part of the Global Allianz Group, one of the world’s leading financial services providers with a presence in more than 70 countries employing approximately 168,000 people worldwide. The company is able to offer customers a wide range of products including home, motor and a comprehensive portfolio of commercial insurance solutions.
