Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI)

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The CMMI was created to be a model to help organizations improve development and maintenance processes and deliverable quality. The CMMI aims at leading the way from ad-hoc processes to mature, capable processes by performing activities guided by directions in process areas and five levels of maturity or capability. The key elements of each level are called Process Areas. More capable process produce, shorter development cycle times, systems without defects, predicable process performance, and adapted products and services that better meet customers’ requirements is the goal with adopting the CMMI. The CMMI aims at providing organizations with abilities to better plan and manage their development and maintenance.

Organizations have to choose from one of two paths to follow when starting using

CMMI

1) Continuous Representation

The continuous representation or the staged representation. The two paths offer a slightly different approach to take on CMMI. If choosing the continuous representation there is a lot of flexibility and doing things in different rates, and is suitable if it is clear which processes that are problematic. With the continuous representation the organization is going through capability levels.

2) Staged Representation

The staged representation is a systematic, structured approach that leads from one stage making sure the ground is laid for the next. The maturity levels contain specific process areas that need to develop and gain certain maturity to be able to go to the next level. This path is more fixed and is suitable to an organization that does not know where to start the improvement work

The model components

The model components of the CMMI are grouped into categories that reflect how they are supposed to be interpreted; there are required, expected and informative components. The required components in the CMMI are the specific and generic goals that represent what an organization must do to satisfy a process area.

Expected components include the generic and specific practices and are a guide to what an organization need to implement to achieve the specific and generic goals. Informative components are detailed information on, for example, work products, sub practices, amplifications, generic practice titles, goal and practice notes, and references.

The term process area is a key element in the CMMI. A process area is a collection of related practices in an area that is considered crucial to improve the specific area. The

CMMI for development version 1.2 includes 22 process areas, for example configuration management, measurement and analysis and organizational process definition. For every process area there is a purpose statement. This is an informative component. The goals, are of course, of major importance. The specific goals are characteristics that must be present to have satisfied a process area. The specific goals are not the same for two different process areas, whereas the generic goals can be the same for multiple process areas. The generic goals function is to describe what must be in place for the process 14 areas to be institutionalized. With the specific and generic goals comes a specific and generic practice. The practices are activities considered important to accomplish the goals.

Category	Process Area
Process Management	Organizational Process Focus Organizational Process Definition Organizational Training Organizational Process Performance Organizational Innovation and Deployment
Project Management	Project Planning Project Monitoring and Control Supplier Agreement Management Integrated Project Management for IPPD Risk Management Quantitative Project Management
Engineering	Requirements Management Requirements Development Technical Solution Product Integration Verification Validation
Support	Configuration Management Process and Product Quality Assurance Measurement and Analysis Decision Analysis and Resolution Causal Analysis and Resolution

Capability and maturity levels

Organizations using the continuous representation are guided by the capability levels. All the CMMI models reflect capability levels. Each capability level has implemented in a process area its associated generic goals and practices. For each process area the organization climbs the capability levels in order to improve and institutionalize the processes. There are six capability levels numbered from 0-5:

0. Incomplete

When at incomplete capability level, processes are incomplete; they are not fully performed and are missing generic goals and perhaps even some specific goals.

1. Performed

A performed process is a process that satisfies the specific goals of the process area. The generic practice of this capability level helps institutionalizing the improvements to make sure they are followed at all times.

2. Managed

Managed processes means that the processes are not just being performed but also managed. That is they have an infrastructure and are controlled, monitored and guided by important objectives of the organization. The process has a basic infrastructure and is planned and executed in line with organisational policy.

3. Defined

Defined processes follow standards, process descriptions and procedures for the project and are tailored from the organizations set of standard processes. The processes at this level are carefully described and documented for every aspect they include.

4. Quantitatively Managed

At level 4 the processes are controlled using quantitative techniques. From experience objectives are established and for a process, quantitative data can be analyzed to manage the process.

5. Optimizing

Improvement in capability level 5 is about understanding inherent variations in process and optimizing them with that knowledge.

There are five maturity levels:

1. Initial

At maturity level 1processes are ad hoc and uncontrolled. Organizations on maturity level 1 significantly exceed budgets and cannot hold timeframes in schedules. They do get products finished but it all depends on heroic achievements of employees and successes are hard to repeat.

2. Managed

At level 2 processes and practices based on policies are established. Projects are monitored and managed according to skills of employees, documentation, stakeholders etc. At stressful times practices are retained and no chaos is to emerge.

3. Defined

At maturity level 3 processes are described in more detail compared to level 2. The processes are more sophisticated; more organized and have an organizational identity.

The organization has its own set of standard processes that are profoundly grounded in the organization.

4. Quantitatively Managed

At maturity level 4, the organization establishes quantitative objectives for quality and process performance and uses them as criteria in managing processes. The quantitative objectives are based on information on what customers, end users, organization and implementers need. This way quality and process performance is managed and understood in statistical terms.

5. Optimizing

“Maturity level 5 focuses on continually improving process performance through incremental and innovative process and technological improvements.”

Level	Focus	Process Area
5 Optimizing	Continuous Process Improvement	Organizational Innovation and Deployment Causal Analysis and Resolution
4 Quantitatively Managed	Quantitative Management	Organizational Process Performance Quantitative Project Management
3 Defined	Process Standardization	Requirements Development Technical Solution Product Integration Verification Validation Organizational Process Focus Organizational Process Definition Organizational Training Integrated Project Management for IPPD Risk Management Decision Analysis and Resolution
2 Managed	Basic Project Management	Requirements Management Project Planning Project Monitoring and Control Supplier Agreement Management Measurement and Analysis Process and Product Quality Assurance Configuration Management
1 Initial Process