Structure of CMMI

The CMMI comes with two different representations – staged and continuous. The staged model, which groups process areas into 5 maturity levels, was also used in the ancestor software development CMM, and is the representation used to achieve a “CMMI Level Rating” from a SCAMPI appraisal. The continuous representation, which was used in the ancestor systems engineering CMM, defines capability levels within each profile. The differences in the representations are solely organizational; the content is equivalent.

The CMMI uses a common structure to describe each of the 22 process areas (PAs). A process area has 1 to 4 goals, and each goal is comprised of practices. Within the 22 PAs these are called specific goals and practices, as they describe activities that are specific to a single PA. There is one additional set of goals and practices that apply in common across all of the PAs; these are called generic goals and practices. Table 1 describes CMMI terminology in more detail. The page numbers refer to the Staged Representation. Common Features are historical artifacts from the software CMM; they do not appear in the CMMI v1.2.

Evaluation

The SEI states that 25 organizations measured increases of performances in the categories cost, schedule, productivity, quality and customer satisfaction.[6] The median increase in performance varied between 14% (customer satisfaction) and 62% (productivity). However, the CMMI model mostly deals with what processes should be implemented, and not so much with how they can be implemented. SEI thus also mentions that these results do not guarantee that applying CMMI will increase performance in every organization. A small company with few resources may be less likely to benefit from CMMI; this view is supported by the Process Maturity Profile (page 10). Of the small organizations (

Appraisal

There are three different types of appraisals, type A, B and C. In Appraisal Requirements for CMMI (ARC) the requirements for CMMI appraisal methods are described.[4] The Standard CMMI Appraisal Method for Process Improvement (SCAMPI) is the only appraisal method which meets all of the ARC requirements for a Class A appraisal method.[5]

An appraisal team and questionnaire are obligatory when conducting a class A appraisal (in class B and C these are optional). Class A appraisals are more formal and can therefore also be used for marketing purposes.

The results of the appraisal are published (if the concerning company approves) on the website of the SEI: Published SCAMPI Appraisal Results. SCAMPI also supports the conduct of ISO/IEC 15504, also known as SPICE (Software Process Improvement and Capability dEtermination), assessments.

History of CMMI

The CMMI is the successor of ,CMM. CMM was developed from 1987 until 1997. In 2002 version 1.1 of the CMMI was released: v1.2 followed in August 2006. The goal of the CMMI project is to improve usability of maturity models for software engineering and other disciplines, by integrating many different models into one framework. It was created by members of industry, government and the SEI. The main sponsors included the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) and the National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA) Systems Engineering Committee.

CMMI is often criticized for being overly bureaucratic and for pushing reliability over services provided.

CMMI Benefits

CMMI Benefits
The CMMI Product Suite is at the forefront of process improvement because it provides the latest best practices for product and service development and maintenance. The CMMI models improve the best practices of previous models in many important ways. CMMI best practices enable organizations to do the following:

- more explicitly link management and engineering activities to their business objectives
- expand the scope of and visibility into the product lifecycle and engineering activities to ensure that the product or service meets customer expectations
- incorporate lessons learned from additional areas of best practice (e.g., measurement, risk management, and supplier management)
- implement more robust high-maturity practices
- address additional organizational functions critical to their products and services
- more fully comply with relevant ISO standards

What is CMMI?

Capability Maturity Model® Integration (CMMI) is a process improvement approach that provides organizations with the essential elements of effective processes. It can be used to guide process improvement across a project, a division, or an entire organization. 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.