Process Academy's White Paper

What is the CMMI?

Version: 1.00

Date Completed: July 30, 2003

 Process Academy's White Paper
What is the CMMI? Version: 1.00

Change History
Date Version Author Description
July 22, 2003 1.00 Françis Dion Document creation

Table of Content

1. PURPOSE 3

2. OUTLINE 3

3. PAPER 3

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 Process Academy's White Paper
What is the CMMI? Version: 1.00

What is the CMMI?

1. Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to describe in layman’s terms what the CMMI is, and what benefits it brings to
software development organizations of any size.

2. Outline
What it is, in a nutshell.
How it came to be.
Who uses it.
What it is, in more details (concepts, structure, and content)
Maturity level
Capability level
Process Areas
Generic Practices
Representations
What are the benefits from using it?
Knowing your trade
Understanding where you stand
Get a structured, logical, time-proven roadmap for improvement
Position yourself as a best-practice company
Is it right for you?
Author and sponsor.
Related links.

3. Paper
What is the CMMI(sm)?
The CMMI(sm) 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(sm)) was originally commissioned by the American
Department of Defence 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.

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What is the CMMI? Version: 1.00

Today the CMMI(sm) 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(sm) 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.

Lev el 5 Less than 5% of

Optimizing Process Orgnizations

Lev el 4
Quantativ ely Managed Process

Lev el 3
Better
Def ined Process

Lev el 2
Managed Process

Lev el 1 Majority of
Initial Organizations

Figure 1 CMMI(sm) Maturity Levels

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 table lists the CMMI(sm) process areas organized by maturity level1.
Maturity Level 1 Maturity Level 2 Maturity Level 3 Maturity Level 4 Maturity Level 5
No process area Requirements Requirements Integrated Quantitative Causal Analysis and
associated with the Management Development Project Project Resolution
maturity level 1 Management Management
Project Planning Technical Organizational
for IPPD
Solution Organizational Innovation and
Project
Integrated Process Deployment
Monitoring and Verification
Supplier Performance
Control
Validation Management
Supplier
Product Risk
Agreement
Integration Management
Management
Organizational Decision
Measurements
Process Focus Analysis and
and Analysis
Resolution
Organizational
Process and
Process Integrated
Product Quality
Definition Teaming
Assurance
Organizational Organizational
Configuration
Training Environment
Management
for Integration
1
Source: CMMI(sm) version 1.1 SW/SE/IPPD Staged Representation
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Management for Integration

The CMMI(sm) 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(sm) (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(sm) 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
questions…
… 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(sm)?
2. Understanding 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(sm) 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.
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3. Getting a structured, logical, time-proven roadmap for improvement

Rather than being a recipe to be followed blindly and faithfully, the CMMI(sm) 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 you improvement plan to the CMMI(sm) 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(sm) will go a long way to achieve this, both
in your clients’ perceptions and in reality. Publicly committing to following the CMMI(sm) is like
saying “We will do the right things, and we will do them right”.

Conclusion: Is the CMMI(sm) right for you?

Unless you believe that common sense does not apply to your context, then the CMMI(sm) 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(sm) 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(sm), 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(sm). It’s no silver bullet, but you
just might sleep better at night!

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What is the CMMI? Version: 1.00

For additional information:

• The CMMI(sm) web site: http://www.sei.cmu.edu/cmmi
• Some return on investment data:
http://www.sei.cmu.edu/publications/documents/00.reports/00sr003/00sr003chap02.html
• Process Academy’s web site: http://www.ProcessAcademy.ca

About the Author

Françis Dion is a software development and process improvement specialist. He is an authorized CMMI(sm)
trainer as well as a certified process assessor and auditor. He can be reached by e-mail at
Francis.Dion@ProcessAcademy.ca.

About the sponsor: DOVICO Software

DOVICO Software has been a global market leader in timesheet and project tracking solutions since 1989,
producing time related products that help clients attain CMMI standards. An example of such CMMI
standards are Timing Devices through which end-users can track time associated with the phases they are
in to meet PSP and/or TSP guidelines. To learn more about DOVICO’s solutions, go to
http://www.dovico.com or e-mail info@dovico.com

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What is the CMMI process improvement v1-00 20030730.doc