• Background
• CMMI improvements over the CMMI
• Scope of CMMI
• The problem and solution through CMMI
• CMMI Motivation
• CMMI Emphasis
• CMMI Process Improvement and its benefits
• CMMI Model representation
• Levels in CMMI
• Process Areas by Maturity Level
• Structure of CMMI - Stage Representation

Background

CMMI is not a Replacement of People Competency. It is not a total business product / service model. In CMMI, Business models include communication models, organization models and other supporting models. It is neither a process nor a Prescriptive Model. The CMMI elements need to be integrated into the business process

So what is CMMI?

A CMMI model provides a structured view of process improvement across an organization. It can help integrate traditionally separate organizations, set process improvement goals and priorities, provide guidance for quality processes and gives a yardstick for appraising current practices followed within the organization.

CMMI improvements over the CMM

CMMI Emphasis on measurable improvements to achieve business objectives. Its Process Areas have been added to place more emphasis on some important practices:

• Risk Management
• Measurement and Analysis
• Engineering Process Areas
• Decision Analysis

Scope of CMMI

CMMI is an aid for organizational and project process improvement. It is an organized collection of best practices attributes.

As a process model CMMI deals with:

• Systems Engineering
• Software Engineering
• Project Management
• Software Development Support processes
• Organization Support processes

The goal is to reduce risk, improve predictability and increased product quality. CMMI is not a process by itself, but identifies what good processes should address for software development.

Common Gap in Oragnization

• Systems and software disciplines have traditionally not been well integrated
• The importance of software in systems has increased dramatically
• The DoD has emphasized the need to make the systems/software interface more seamless

The Solution Through CMMI

• Systems engineering and software engineering processes are integrated into one process improvement framework.
• Integrates systems and software disciplines into one process improvement framework.
• Provides a framework for introducing new disciplines as needs arise.

CMMI Motivation

Organizations using CMMI has shown remarkable improvement in processes. The reason for increase in success is majorly due to their increased Maturity and Evolution of Software Engineering Practices. They have better skilled project managers with better management processes. Better Mechanisms to monitor and control progress with better Project Management Tools.

CMMI Emphasis

CMMI Emphasis on Business Objectives and Project objectives, Formal Decision Making, comprehensive Risk Management, analyzing & taking preventive action on customer problems to ensure better customer satisfaction.

It helps establish a Shared Vision. Its Emphasis is on detailed Requirements Engineering which gives more clarity in requirement phase and thus reduces the number of requirement defects at the later stage of SDLC. It also persuades the Organization to put more stress on In-Depth Product Engineering and Product Verification & Validation activities to reduce the defects in the developed product.

CMMI Process Improvement and its benefits:

CMMI implementation has actually leaded to various Process improvements in the organizations. The remarkable improvements are based on:

• Improved schedule and budget predictability
• Improved cycle time
• Increased productivity
• Improved quality (as measured by defects)
• Increased customer satisfaction
• Improved employee morale
• Increased return on investment
• Decreased cost of quality

CMMI Representation

An organization may choose to approach process improvement from amongst two approaches which represent different representations of CMMI.

These can be:

• Organizational Maturity Approach - Staged Representation
• Process Capability Approach - Continuous Representation

Levels in CMMI

CMMi has five levels. However, based on organization's structure and needs, it may either use the Continuous representation or staged representation.

The below diagram provides more clarity on the maturity levels.

Process Areas by Maturity Level

Each proces area of CMMI models are categorized based on the maturity levels. The below table depicts the process area with respect to the maturity level and its focus.