What is the CMMI?

by Françis Dion

Published on this site: July 8th, 2005 - See more articles from this month...

The CMMI is a model for improving and appraising the performance of development organizations. It stands for “Capability Maturity Model Integration”. It is published and developed by the Software Engineering Institute in Pittsburgh, PA.

The CMM (the original version of the CMMI) was originally commissioned by the American Department of Defense to help them qualify software vendors’ capabilities. From there it quickly evolved into a powerful tool to guide process improvement initiatives, not only for Software Development but for many related fields such as Systems Engineering, Product Acquisition, Team Management, Research and Development, etc.

Today the CMMI is used around the world in military, commercial and government organizations. It has been shown to reduce the risks associated with development projects, increase efficiency and improve the overall quality of products and deliverables. Many civil industries such as transportation and telecommunications are making it a requirement for submissions to large tenders. Countries such as India and China are also using it to position themselves as dependable, trustworthy providers of world class outsourcing services.

The CMMI is best known for its five levels of organizational maturity (see figure below). Each level represents a coherent set of best practices organizations are expected to implement as they become better at what they do.

• Level 1: Initial (Majority of Organizations)
  
• Level 2: Managed Process
  
• Level 3: Defined Process
  
• Level 4: Quantatively Managed Process
  
• Level 5: Optimizing Process (less than 5% of Organizations)

To each maturity level are associated a number of related process areas. The process areas can be viewed as very detailed checklists of what goals need to be achieved, what activities performed, and what artifact created and maintained to satisfy the requirements for a specific part of the overall development process. The following lists the CMMI process areas organized by maturity level. (Source: CMMI version 1.1 SW/SE/IPPD Staged Representation )

1. Maturity Level 1:
   
   No process area associated with the maturity level 1
   
   
2. Maturity Level 2:
   
   Requirements Management
   Project Planning
   Project Monitoring and Control
   Supplier Agreement Management
   Measurements and Analysis
   Process and Product Quality Assurance
   Configuration Management
   
   
3. Maturity Level 3:
   
   Requirements Development
   Technical Solution
   Verification
   Validation
   Product Integration
   Organizational Process Focus
   Organizational Process Definition
   Organizational Training
   Integrated Project Management for IPPD
   Integrated Supplier Management
   Risk Management
   Decision Analysis and Resolution
   Integrated Teaming
   Organizational Environment for Integration
   
   
4. Maturity Level 4:
   
   Quantitative Project Management
   Organizational Process Performance
   
   
5. Maturity Level 5:
   
   Causal Analysis and Resolution
   Organizational Innovation and Deployment

The CMMI also include Generic Goals and Generic Practices. These model elements cover the organization’s ability to perform, manage, share, measure and improve its processes.

A new feature of the CMMI (as opposed to the original CMM) is the ability to choose between two representations of the model: Staged or Continuous. Generally speaking, the Staged representation is better suited to focus the organization towards tangible yet high level goals, while the Continuous representation allows for the precise customization of a process improvement program or appraisal to better meet an organization’s specific requirements.

BENEFITS

Here are some of the major benefits you can achieve by using the CMMI in your organization:

1. KNOWING YOUR TRADE
   
   Are you sure everybody involved in your projects knows exactly what their job is and how it relates with what everyone else is doing? Just go around the office and ask these simple question
   
   To the project managers:
   
   a. What is the difference between a plan and a schedule?
   
   b. What do you record about the estimates that are being made?
   
   c. Do you estimate size as well as effort when doing your planning? Do you monitor both attributes during the life of the project?
   
   To the configuration managers:
   
   a. What is a baseline?
   
   b. What is the purpose of a configuration audit?
   
   c. Who authorizes changes to the configuration units?
   
   To the quality assurance analysts:
   
   a. What is the object of Quality Assurance?
   
   b. How is it different from Quality Control? From Testing?
   
   c. Who, in the organization, knows about the Quality Assurance
   activities and results?
   
   If people in your organization cannot answer these questions right away or if nobody knows what these roles are or who performs them, then your staff has an urgent need for some education in their respective trade. Why not start with a primer on the CMMI?
   
   
2. UNDERSTAND WHERE YOU STAND
   
   Are you doing better or worst than your peers and competitors?
   
   When it comes to process improvement, are you “cutting edge” or a laggard organization?
   
   How can you tell?
   
   The CMMI is both complete and universally relevant, allowing for very precise and detailed benchmarking of process performance within as well as across organizations and industry segments.
   
   
3. GETTING A STRUCTURE, LOGICAL, TIME-PROVEN ROADMAP FOR IMPROVEMENT
   
   Rather than being a recipe to be followed blindly and faithfully, the CMMI is a well-organized list of things that need to be taken care of in order to be systematically successful in your development projects. Aligning your improvement plan to the CMMI levels ensures that you don’t forget anything and effectively protects you from the infamous “tunnel vision” effect.
   
   
4. POSITIONING YOURSELF AS A BEST-PRACTICE COMPANY
   
   If your organization develops products, you probably want your clients (be them internal or external) to look up to you as a disciplined, knowledgeable, reliable and trustworthy supplier. Adhering to the principles and practices of the CMMI will go a long way to achieve this, both in your clients’ perceptions and in reality. Publicly committing to following the CMMI is like saying “We will do the right things, and we will do them right”.

CONCLUSION:

Is the CMMI right for you? Unless you believe that common sense does not apply to your context, then the CMMI is a powerful tool to guide your process improvements efforts. Whether yours is a mega-corporation with thousands of employees or a small outfit with just a handful of developers, the CMMI can help you deliver better products faster.

Studies have shown that companies that invest 5% to 10% of their operating costs into process improvement typically experience a return on investment of 100% the first year and upwards of 400% after 3 to 5 years. These returns on investments are based on reductions in the number of defects, faster time to market, improvements in estimation capabilities and better project control resulting in fewer schedule and cost overruns.

If you are under the impression that your company or organization is too small to benefit from the CMMI, then consider this: Are you too small for your projects to be late? For your requirements to be vague and imprecise, resulting in a lot of rework and unsatisfied customer? Do you sometime worry that your team won’t Be able to deliver in time for the next trade show, yet don’t know how help them out? If you can relate to any of these situations, then look more closely into CMMI. It’s no silver bullet, but you just might sleep better at night!

For additional information:

• The CMMI web site: http://www.sei.cmu.edu/cmmi

• Some return on investment
http://www.sei.cmu.edu/publications/..../00sr003chap02.html

• Process Academy’s web site: http://www.ProcessAcademy.ca



Françis Dion is a software development and process improvement specialist. He is an authorized CMMI trainer as well as a certified process assessor and auditor. mailto:[email protected]