September 14, 2004

TCG Assisting Concept Solutions to Reach CMMI Level 2

CMMI Mentoring Service generates value for small businesses

Washington, DC, September 14 2004: TCG, a leading provider of grants management solutions to the Federal government and a CMMI Level 2 small business, today announced that Concept Solutions has retained the company to provide CMMI Mentoring Services. With the assistance of TCG’s mentors, Concept Solutions, an 8(a) small business based in Reston, Virginia, intends to attain CMMI Level 2 to further enhance its competitive edge in the government IT contracting market.

CMMI is the de facto worldwide standard of excellence in software engineering. Numerous U.S. federal departments and private sector organizations have made compliance with CMMI best practices an eligibility requirement in order to compete on certain contracts. The assessment is extremely difficult to obtain for small businesses. TCG’s CMMI Mentoring Service is focused on accelerating the process of achieving a successful assessment, and can be tailored to suit corporate budgets.

Being assessed at CMMI Level 2 involves developing an in-depth understanding of CMMI Level 2 goals and practices, defining Level 2‑compliant processes for projects, and demonstrating consistent adherence to those processes over time.

TCG’s CMMI Level 2 Mentoring Services comprise:

  • An in-depth program of basic and optional sessions designed to assist small software development organizations in acquiring the knowledge and tools they need to achieve a successful CMMI Level 2 assessment. The program consists of a series of step-by-step training sessions, starting with creating the organizational infrastructure necessary to support CMMI, continuing on through the implementation of defined processes within an existing project, and culminating with a process improvement schedule that will ensure the organization continues along the path toward a successful CMMI Level 2 assessment.
  • Regular, ongoing advisory services support for the CMMI process improvement efforts, including participation in the Software Engineering Process Office (SEPO, or equivalent), documentation and artifact reviews, one-on-one mentoring, training of additional staff, and assistance with assessment preparation.

TCG’s CMMI Level 2 Mentoring Services are not merely a series of training sessions. The company will provide Concept Solutions with a hands-on program in which participants will create the policies, process descriptions, tools, and infrastructure necessary for implementing and sustaining CMMI Level 2 best practices.

“Like Concept Solutions, TCG is committed to software quality and project excellence,” said Daniel Turner, President of TCG. “By using our CMMI experts and the lessons TCG learned during our own CMMI efforts, Concept Solutions has found an entrepreneurial way of reaching its corporate goals-the mark of a great company and great corporate leadership.”

About TCG
TCG (Turner Consulting Group, https://stage.tcg.com), a Washington, DC, based company, specializes in delivering grants management solutions to the Federal government, and is responsible for pioneering integration work with Grants.gov, the government’s grants applications portal.

The company was SEI-assessed at Capability Maturity Model Integration Maturity Level 2 (CMMI Level 2 for Software as defined by the CMMI version 1.1) in April 2004 after an intense nine-month effort and is one of about 701 companies worldwide to have achieved such recognition of process excellence.

TCG focuses on helping government agencies use the power of the Internet and the Web to better interact with the public, and to generate internal cost savings and efficiencies. TCG projects have won awards for their groundbreaking achievements, including piloting the first inter-agency grants management system, and creating the first and only inter-agency government system to receive secure information from the general public. That system, Interagency Edison (http://www.iedison.gov), was built in 1995 for NIH’s specific needs. Today the system serves the invention and patent reporting requirements of 21 Federal agencies.

TCG was one of the fastest-growing privately-held companies in the United States in 2001, as ranked by Inc. magazine. The firm has been on Washington Technology’s Fast 50.

For more information, contact David G. Cassidy on 202–742-8471 or david.cassidy@tcg.com.

About Concept Solutions
Concept Solutions (www.concept-solutions.com) is an 8(a) small business that delivers IT services and products to government and industry clients. The company’s culture is built upon 5 Founding Principles:

  • Our People Are Our Greatest Asset
  • Enhance Our Talent
  • Share Our Rewards
  • Innovative Solutions
  • Leadership

The company’s solutions include data integration, market intelligence, data warehousing, Oracle development and architecture, and clients include the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Marine Corps., RoadRunner, and Nextel.

For more information about Concept Solutions, contact Phong Mai on (703) 889‑8444 or info@concept-solutions.com, or see www.Concept-Solutions.com.

About SEI and CMMI
The Software Engineering Institute (SEI) is a federally funded research and development center sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense through the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics [OUSD (AT&L)].

The SEI’s core purpose is to help others make measured improvements in their software engineering capabilities.

SEI has developed six Capability Maturity Models. CMMI is the result of SEI’s continuing efforts to define maturity models that describe best practices for engineering organizations. Prior to CMMI, SEI defined Software CMM (SW-CMM), which has now been sunset to encourage adoption of CMMI.

The SEI’s goals in developing CMMs include;

  • addressing software engineering and other disciplines that have an affect on software development and maintenance
  • providing integrated process improvement reference models
  • building broad community consensus
  • harmonizing with related standards
  • enabling efficient improvement across disciplines relevant to software development and maintenance

More information about SEI and CMMI can be found at http://www.sei.cmu.edu.