Since December 2008, Pentalog and Pentalog Technology (our joint-venture with Ausy) have been ISO 9001 certified for their offices in Brasov, Bucharest and Sibiu, as well as Pentalog Iasi and Pentalog Chisinau.The ISO certification, granted for a three-year period, was obtained following a main audit which allowed to control the practices of the group in terms of recruitment, training, sales and marketing, provider management… as well as project organization at our development and testing sites in Brasov and Chisinau. It will be renewed through two follow-up audits which will enable, after three years, to verify the conformity of all our offshore development sites in Eastern Europe. Our Vietnamese site in Hanoi, which hadn’t been created yet in 2008, but which aligned its practices to the group repository from the moment it was opened, should qualify for receiving the certification in 2011-2013.Entering an ISO certification process has allowed Pentalog to make quick and considerable progress on its work process management and the improvements that were made by implementing the quality system have often been recognized by our customers.If, for some of them, our rigour in formalizing specifications and detailed test plans or in holding regular progress or arbitration meetings, may sometimes seem cumbersome, in the end, there are undeniable differences in terms of transparency on the follow-up of completed workload or delivered quality, between projects conforming to our repository and those coordinated at sight, in an arbitrary manner.Taking time to reflect, taking a step back for a better leap forward (taking more time in the conceptualization stages rather than working hastily, undoing the work, redoing it and eventually wasting time and money), this is simply what Pentalog is offering by organizing its client projects. Depending on the project context and work method, the implementation is adapted, but fundamental principles remain the same.Customized implementation of institutionalized processes is also in agreement with the CMMI model towards which we are orienting our repository, within the specific framework of IT development and at a more advanced level of definition.For a year now, we have been orienting our quality management system in this direction, through training sessions that we are offering our project managers and team leaders. More than 60 of them have already attended these best practices training sessions related both to the production cycle and to project follow-up and team management activities.All our project leaders have understood and efficiently integrated these best practices into their daily management, in a gradual manner, so that changes can be noticed by the client only through the benefits that they bring them.On November 29th and 30th, Pentalog and Pentalog Technology Sibiu, followed by the Orléans headquarters on December 6th, will be facing the 2nd follow-up audit (successfully I hope 🙂 ). Then we will begin a new three-year improvement plan, more CMMI-oriented, which is also at company level. This is because at Pentalog, our certification is truly the result of a determined policy of the entire group management, the confirmation of tangible and systematic practices that are integrated at all company levels and an indisputable pillar of our growth.