CMMI Maturity Levels

Benefits of CMMI

There are many good reasons to upgrade to CMMI. Some of the benefits that organizations have experienced as they have adopted the CMMI approach are:

• More explicit linkage of management and engineering activities to business objectives
• Improved visibility into the product life cycle and engineering activities to ensure that the product or service meets customer expectations
• Leveraging from additional areas of best practice (e.g., measurement, risk management, and supplier management)
• More robust high-maturity practices
• More visibility into additional organizational functions critical to their products and services
• Tighter coupling with relevant ISO standards
• Helps bridge the gap between the systems engineer and the software / hardware engineer by integrating the systems engineering and software engineering processes
• Assists organizations in the appraisal of their current practices

Some of the benefits, individuals in their respective role play, have experienced in adopting the CMMI approach:

Managers / Practitioners

• Helps in understanding who the stakeholders are so as to have a common understanding with them of the project’s scope /requirements
• Moving from accepting changes without adequate impact analysis to negotiated changes based on impact
• Management moves from after-the-fact corrective action to measurement-focused, more proactive controls throughout the program
• Risk management is explicitly used throughout the systems and software engineering disciplines
• Management focus moves from “communication is an extra step in the process” to “communication is vital to keeping the process going”.

Program Managers

• More involvement in understanding system and software requirements and their impact on the system
• A routine visibility into project progress
• More visibility into subcontracts and subcontractor risks

As stated earlier, CMMI model is a collection of best practices that help organizations to improve their processes. The first CMMI model was developed by a product team from industry, government, and the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) for the application of process improvement in the development of products and services covering the entire product lifecycle from conceptualization through maintenance and disposal.

CMMI Wheel

CMMI Levels and Process Areas

Level 2

• Requirements Management
• Project Planning
• Project Monitoring and Control
• Supplier’s Agreement Management
• Product and Process Quality Assurance
• Configuration Management
• Measurement and Analysis

Level 3

• Organization Process Focus
• Organization Process Definition
• Organizational Training
• Integrated Project Management
• Risk Management
• Requirements Development
• Technical Solution
• Product Integration
• Verification
• Validation
• Decision Analysis and Resolution

Level 4

• Organizational Process Performance
• Quantitative Project Management

Level 5

• Causal Analysis and Resolution
• Organizational Innovation and Deployment

CMMI for Development

It is a process improvement maturity model for the development of products and services. It consists of best practices that address development and maintenance activities that cover the product lifecycle from conception through delivery and maintenance.

CMMI for Development (CMMI-DEV) provides a comprehensive integrated solution for development and maintenance activities applied to products and services.

CMMI for Development is a continuation and update of the earlier version and has been facilitated by the concept of CMMI “constellations” wherein a set of core components can be augmented by additional material to provide application-specific models with highly common content. CMMI-DEV is the first of such constellations and represents the development area of interest.

Purpose

The purpose of CMMI for Development is to help organizations improve their development and maintenance processes for both products and services. CMMI for Development is a collection of best practices that is generated from the CMMI Framework. The CMMI Framework supports the CMMI Product Suite by allowing multiple models, training courses, and appraisal methods to be generated that support specific areas of interest.

CMMI for Services

Following the success of CMMI models for development organizations, the need was identified for a CMMI model addressing the service industry.

The service industry is a significant driver for worldwide economic growth. Guidance on developing and improving mature service practices is a key contributor to the performance, customer satisfaction,

and profitability of the economic community. This CMMI for Services (CMMI-SVC) model is designed to begin meeting that need. Northrop Grumman sponsored and led a volunteer industry team with the approval of the CMMI Steering Group. This team, collaborating with the SEI, developed the initial draft of the Services constellation.

Purpose

The CMMI-SVC model is a collection of best practices that is generated from the CMMI Architecture and Framework. This collection includes services best practices from government and industry. CMMI-SVC is based on the "CMMI Model Foundation" or "CMF" (i.e., model components common to all CMMI models and constellations) and incorporates work by several service organizations to adapt CMMI for use in the service industry.

The CMMI-SVC model provides guidance for the application of CMMI best practices by the service provider organization. Best practices in the model focus on activities for providing quality services to the customer and end users. CMMI-SVC integrates bodies of knowledge that are essential for a service provider.

Organizations with different levels of CMMI Certificates

Most of the major software organizations in the world are assessed at CMMI levels like either Level 3 or Level 5. To name a few Infosys, Wipro, Satyam, Mastek, TCS, HCL etc.