DTCC sits at the top of an elite class of industry firms in the United States as the only financial services company to achieve CMMI Maturity Level 3.

CMMI is a framework of standards that guide an organization to improve quality and reduce costs by using reliable, fully defined, and repeatable processes in software development. DTCC’s Applications Development and Maintenance organization began its adoption of CMMI in 2003, and is now Maturity Level 3 certified by the Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute, an internationally-recognized certification agent.

There are five maturity levels that define CMMI certification, numbered one through five, with one being the lowest level of software development standards and five being the highest. To advance, firms must not only adopt new standards (called “Process Areas”), but must also enhance previously adopted standards. To fully achieve CMMI Maturity Level 3, DTCC not only adopted all the required Level 3 Process Areas, such as Organizational Training, Risk Management and Decision Analysis and Resolution, but also enhanced its previously-achieved Level 2 processes, which include Project Planning, Project Monitoring and Control, Requirements Management, and Process and Product Quality Assurance.

The Process Architecture Office (PAO), part of the IT Governance and Assurance Area, is responsible for the overall IT process architecture strategy and direction. The PAO is made up of two primary groups: Engineering Process Group (EPG) which is responsible for defining, maintaining, improving, and supporting the standard development process and also for coordinating organizational initiatives that may impact the process and the Process & Product Quality Assurance (PPQA) which is responsible for executing reviews against projects in order to ensure project teams' adherence to the process identified by the PAO. Together the EPG and PPQA groups ensure that all CMMI requirements are fulfilled.

When applied in a practical, measurement-driven way, CMMI best practices offer significant benefits in reduced rework, improved quality, tightened schedules, better budget performance and improved customer satisfaction.