Capability Maturity Model Integration

Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) is a process improvement approach that helps organizations improves their performance. CMMI can be used to guide process improvement across a project, a division, or an entire organization.

CMMI in software engineering and organizational development is a process improvement approach that provides organizations with the essential elements for effective process improvement. CMMI is a trademark owned by Software Engineering Institute of Carnegie Mellon University.

According to the Software Engineering Institute (SEI, 2008), CMMI helps “integrate traditionally separate organizational functions, set process improvement goals and priorities, provide guidance for quality processes, and provide a point of reference for appraising current processes.”

Overview

CMMI currently addresses three areas of interest:

Product and service development — CMMI for Development (CMMI-DEV),
Service establishment, management, and delivery — CMMI for Services (CMMI-SVC), and
Product and service acquisition — CMMI for Acquisition (CMMI-ACQ).

CMMI was developed by a group of experts from industry, government, and the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) at Carnegie Mellon University. CMMI models provide guidance for developing or improving processes that meet the business goals of an organization. A CMMI model may also be used as a framework for appraising the process maturity of the organization.

CMMI originated in software engineering but has been highly generalized over the years to embrace other areas of interest, such as the development of hardware products, the delivery of all kinds of services, and the acquisition of products and services. The word “software” does not appear in definitions of CMMI. This generalization of improvement concepts makes CMMI extremely abstract. It is not as specific to software engineering as its predecessor, the Software CMM.

History

CMMI was developed by the CMMI project, which aimed to improve the usability of maturity models by integrating many different models into one framework. The project consisted of members of industry, government and the Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute (SEI). The main sponsors included the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) and the National Defense Industrial Association.

CMMI is the successor of the capability maturity model (CMM) or software CMM. The CMM was developed from 1987 until 1997. In 2002, CMMI Version 1.1 was released, Version 1.2 followed in August 2006, and Version 1.3 in October 2010.

CMMI topics

CMMI representation

CMMI exists in two representations: continuous and staged. The continuous representation is designed to allow the user to focus on the specific processes that are considered important for the organization’s immediate business objectives, or those to which the organization assigns a high degree of risks. The staged representation is designed to provide a standard sequence of improvements, and can serve as a basis for comparing the maturity of different projects and organizations. The staged representation also provides for an easy migration from the SW-CMM to CMMI.

CMMI model framework – Depending on the CMMI constellation (acquisition, services, and development) used, the process areas it contains will vary. Key process areas are the areas that will be covered by the organization’s processes.