Chris Wiginton
12/27/13
IS-3110 Week 2 Lab/Homework

Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI)

In the middle part of the 1980’s the United States Air force partnered with Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. Their goal was to have the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) create a model that the United States Military could use to evaluate subcontractors of military software. The model was called Capability Maturity Model (CMM), which was really a collection structured process improvement approaches.

As time went on CMM processes were improved on, CMM became Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) in 2002. In 2013, Carnegie Mellon University created the CMMI Institute and transferred the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) from the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) to the CMMI Institute.

The Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) is used by many companies around the world and is required for most government contractors in the United States. CMMI is a process model that clearly defines what an organization should do to lead to improved performance. The CMMI gives companies guidelines that tell them what the most important things are required to build great products, or deliver great services. CMMI can be used to guide process improvement across a project, division, or an entire organization and for this reason it has been adapted by many private companies.

The Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) has three major areas that it covers. They are CMMI for Development (CMMI-DEV), CMMI for Services (CMMI-SVC) and CMMI for Acquisition (CMMI-ACQ). Within each area, there are five levels of Maturity. Each level has several Core Process levels that must be met in order to reach the next level. Core Process areas are the areas that will be covered with the organization’s processes depending on their area of interest (DEV, SVC or ACQ.)

Of special note is that companies are not certified as CMMI compliant, but are instead “appraised.” Depending on how well a company does in its appraisal, it is then awarded a maturity level rating of 1 to 5. Some government agencies require their subcontract organizations to achieve and operate at a level 3 as a standard practice. Because of the cost in achieving the higher maturity levels there are only about 300 companies