Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI)

What is Capability Maturity Model Integration?

The Capability Maturity Model Integration, or CMMI, is a process model that provides a clear definition of what an organization should do to promote behaviors that lead to improved performance. With five “Maturity Levels” or three “Capability Levels,” the CMMI defines the most important elements that are required to build great products, or deliver great services, and wraps them all up in a comprehensive model. The CMMI was developed at the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University with representation from defense, industry, government, and academia, and is now operated and maintained by the CMMI Institute, an operating unit of CMU. It is the successor of the popular Software CMM or SW-CMM. The are multiple “flavors” of the CMMI, called “Constellations,” that include CMMI for Development (CMMI-DEV), CMMI for Services (CMMI-SVC), and CMMI for Acquisition (CMMI-ACQ). The three Constellations share a core set of sixteen Process Areas. There is also a “People CMM,” or P-CMM, that exists outside of the three CMMI Constellations.

Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) provides a framework for improving the processes organizations use to develop and deliver products for their customers. The process improvement concepts embedded in CMMI are based upon sound process management principles used in manufacturing communities for years. These principles have been successfully applied in software and systems engineering process improvement, and are codified for product development in CMMI.

An accepted, global best practice for the management and delivery of quality software services. 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.

Simply put, the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) is a process and behavioral model that helps organizations streamline process improvement and encourage productive, efficient behaviors that decrease risks in software, product, and service development.

The CMMI Institute, on March 28, 2018, released its newest version of the CMMI model – CMMI v2.0 specifically for Development.

Structure of CMMI

The CMMI is structured as follows:

• Maturity Levels (staged representation) or Capability Levels (continuous representation)
• Process Areas
• Goals: Generic and Specific
• Common Features
• Practices: Generic and Specific

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 25 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.

Purpose of the CMMI Model

The purpose of the CMMI model is to assess the maturity of an organization's processes and to provide guidance on improving processes, with the goal of improved products. Also, CMMI is a model for risk management and provides a way to measure an organization's ability to manage risk. The ability to manage risk factors in an organization's ability to deliver high-quality products. Another perspective on managing risk is how well an organization will perform under stress. A high-maturity, a high-capability organization can easily respond to unexpected, stressful events. A low-maturity and lower-capability organization tend to panic under stress, blindly follow obviated procedures, or throw out all process altogether and retrench back to chaos.

The CMMI, however, isn't a proven indicator of the economic performance of an organization. Although higher-maturity organizations may manage risk better and be more predictable, evidence exists that higher-maturity firms tend to be risk-averse. Risk aversion can lead to a lack of innovation or evidence of greater bureaucracy that results in long lead times and a lack of competitiveness. Lower maturity firms tend to be more innovative and creative but chaotic and unpredictable. When results are achieved, they are often the result of the heroic effort by individuals or managers.

How CMMI is Applied by Business

The stated goal of the CMMI Institute is to “Enable organizations to elevate and benchmark performance across a wide range of critical business capabilities, including product development, service excellence, workforce management, data management, supplier management, and cybersecurity.”

Organizations that want to better understand how their practices compare to CMMI best practices and want to implement CMMI practices often start with an appraisal. Generally, a business decides to be appraised for one or more reasons, including to:

• Evaluate how the organization’s processes compare to CMMI best practices and determine areas of improvement
• Share information with customers or suppliers about how the organization compares to CMMI best practices
• Comply with contractual terms of customers understanding

CMMI Appraisal

A CMMI Appraisal helps to identify the strengths and weaknesses of an organization’s processes and to examine how closely the processes relate to CMMI best practices. It provides reliable, clear, consistent, and actionable focus on performance improvements that will have the most impact on the business and help build and improve capability.

The appraisal allows organizations to identify and prioritize business improvement efforts. Earning a benchmark maturity level or a capability level achievement can prove a depth of quality and professionalism to customers and business partners!

History of CMMI

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, version 1.1 was released, version 1.2 followed in August 2006, and version 1.3 in November 2010. Some major changes in CMMI V1.3 are the support of agile software development, improvements to high-maturity practices, and alignment of the representation (staged and continuous).

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."[8]

Mary Beth Chrissis, Mike Konrad, and Sandy Shrum Rawdon were the authorship team for the hard copy publication of CMMI for Development Version 1.2 and 1.3. The Addison-Wesley publication of Version 1.3 was dedicated to the memory of Watts Humphry. Eileen C. Forrester, Brandon L. Buteau, and Sandy Shrum were the authorship team for the hard copy publication of CMMI for Services Version 1.3. Rawdon "Rusty" Young was the chief architect for the development of CMMI version 2.0. He was previously the CMMI Product Owner and the SCAMPI Quality Lead for the Software Engineering Institute.

In March 2016, the CMMI Institute was acquired by ISACA.

CMMI certifications

CMMI certifications are offered directly through the CMMI Institute, which certifies individuals, appraisers, instructors, and practitioners.

The CMMI Institute offers the following certifications:

• CMMI Associate: The CMMI Associate Certification demonstrates your commitment and abilities when it comes to capability and performance improvement. The certification validates that you have the skills and knowledge to connect the CMMI model to business value and to participate as an Appraisal Team Member (CTM).

CMMI Professional: The next level of certification is the CMMI Professional certification, which demonstrates your ability to apply the CMMI model in an organization structure through road maps for performance, team coaching, organizational change management and fostering a culture of improvement.

• Certified CMMI Lead Appraiser: As a certified CMMI Lead Appraiser, you will be qualified to appraise organizations to determine their capability or maturity level as outlined in the CMMI model. Applications are reviewed by the ISACA Appraiser Application Review committee, who will evaluate your qualifications for the certification.
• Certified CMMI Instructor: The Certified CMMI Instructor certification enables you to lead instructional courses on CMMI. You’ll need a sponsoring organization that also is an ISACA partner and that is licensed for use of the CMMI product suite to qualify for the exam.

See Also

IT Capability Business Capability
Business Architecture
Business Model
Business Process
Business Analysis
Balanced Scorecard
Business Process Management
IT Strategy
eBusiness
e-Strategy
Business IT Alignment
IT Capability Maturity Framework (IT-CMF)
Capability Maturity Model (CMM)
Maturity Model

Further Reading

• Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) Definition and Solutions
• Capability Maturity Model® Integration (CMMI®) Overview