Capapbility Maturity Model


	*Revolutive IT™*

Capapbility Maturity Model (SEI-CMM) and Quality

D eveloping reliable and usable software that is delivered on time and within budget is a difficult endeavor for many organizations. Products that are late, over budget, or that dont work as expected also cause problems for the organization's customers. As software projects continue to increase in size and importance, these problems become magnified. These problems can be overcome through a focused and sustained effort at building a process infrastructure of effective software engineering and management practices.

To build this process infrastructure, organizations producing software need ways to appraise their ability to perform their software process successfully. They also need guidance to improve their process capability. Customers, such as the Department of Defense (DoD), needed ways to evaluate more effectively an organization's capability to perform successfully on software engineering contracts. Prime contractors need ways to evaluate the capability of potential subcontractors.

To help organizations and customers like the DoD and prime contractors, the Software Engineering Institute (SEl) has developed the Capability Maturity Model for Software (CMM), that delineates the characteristics of a mature, capable software process. The progression from an immature, unrepeatable software process to a mature, well-managed software process also is described in terms of maturity levels in the model.

The CMM can be used for:

Software process improvement, in which an organization plans, develops, and implements changes to its software process;
software process assessments, in which a trained team of software professionals determines the state of an organization's current software process, determines the high-priority software process-related issues facing an organization, and obtains the organizational support for software process improvement; and
software capability evaluations, in which a trained team of professionals identifies contractors who are qualified to perform the software work or monitors the state of the software process used on an existing software effort.

The Capability Maturity Model for Software (CMM) is a framework that describes the key elements of an effective software process. The CMM describes an evolutionary improvement path from an ad hoc, immature process to a mature, disciplined process.

The CMM covers practices for planning, engineering, and managing software development and maintenance. When followed, these key practices improve the ability of organizations to meet goals for cost, schedule, functionality, and product quality.

The CMM establishes a yardstick against which it is possible to judge, in a repeatable way, the maturity of an organization's software process and compare it to the state of the practice of the industry. The CMM can also be used by an organization to plan improvements to its software process.

The Software Engineering Institute (SEl) developed an initial version of a maturity model and maturity questionnaire at the request of the government and with the assistance of the MITRE Corporation. Throughout the development of the model and the questionnaire, the SEl has paid attention to advice from practitioners who are involved in developing and improving software processes. The model is based on actual practices; reflects the best of the state of the practice; reflects the needs of individuals performing software process improvement, software process assessments, or software capability evaluations; is documented and is publicly available.

The CMM is composed of five maturity levels. With the exception of Level 1, each maturity level is composed of several key process areas. Each key process area is organized into five sections called common features. The common features specify the key practices that, when collectively addressed, accomplish the goals of the key process area.

The components of the CMM include:

Maturity levels
A maturity level is a well-defined evolutionary plateau toward achieving a mature software process. The five maturity levels provide the top-level structure of the CMM.

Process capability
Software process capability describes the range of expected results that can be achieved by following a software process. The software process capability of an organization provides one means of predicting the most likely outcomes to be expected from the next software project the organization undertakes.

Key process areas
Each maturity level is composed of key process areas. Each key process area identifies a cluster of related activities that, when performed collectively, achieve a set of goals considered important for establishing process capability at that maturity level. The key process areas have been defined to reside at a single maturity level. For example, one of the key process areas for Level 2 is Software Project Planning.

Goals
The goals summarize the key practices of a key process area and can be used to determine whether an organization or project has effectively implemented the key process area. The goals signify the scope, boundaries, and intent of each key process area.

An example of a goal from the Software Project Planning key process area is "Software estimates are documented for use in planning and tracking the software project."

Comrnon features
The key practices are divided among five Common Features sections: Commitment to Perform, Ability to Perform, Activities Performed, Measurement and Analysis, and Verifying Implementation. The common features are attributes that indicate whether the implementation and institutionalization of a key process area is effective, repeatable, and lasting.

The Activities Performed common feature describes implementation activities. The other four common features describe the institutionalization factors, which make a process part of the organizational culture.

Key practices
Each key process area is described in terms of key practices that, when implemented, help to satisfy the goals of that key process area. The key practices describe the infrastructure and activities that contribute most to the effective implementation and institutionalization of the key process area.

For example, one of the practices from the Software Project Planning key process area is "The projects software development plan is developed according to a documented procedure."

Each maturity level provides a layer in the foundation for continuous process improvement. Each key process area comprises a set of goals that, when satisfied, stabilize an important component of the software process. Achieving each level of the maturity model institutionalizes a different component in the software process, resulting in an overall increase in the process capability of the organization.

Level 1: At the Initial Level, the organization typically does not provide a stable environment for developing and maintaining software.

Level 2: At the Repeatable Level, polices for managing a software project and procedures to implement those policies are established. Planning and managing new projects is based on experience with similar projects.
         Requirements Management
         Project Planning
         Project Tracking and Oversight
         Subcontract Management
         Quality Assurance
         Configuration Management

Level 3: At the Defined Level, the standard process for developing and maintaining software across the organization is documented, including both software engineering and management processes, and these processes are integrated into a coherent whole.
         Organization Process Focus
         Organization Process Definition
         Training Program
         Integrated Software Management
         Software Product Engineering
         Intergroup Coordination
         Peer Reviews

Level 4: At the Managed Level, the organization sets quantitative quality goals for both software products and processes. Productivity and quality are measured for important software process activities across all projects as part of an organizational measurement program.
Quantitative Process Management
Software Quality Management

Level 5: At the Optimizing Level, the entire organization is focused on continuous process improvement. The organization has the means to identify weakness and strenghten the process proactively, with the goal of preventing the occurrence and defects.
         Defect Prevention
         Technology Change Management
         Process Change Management

The step from one level to another is not easy and there are few companies around the world that has reached the Level 5 (about 30!).

Our solutions are the most efficient, flexible, quality-based and cheaper of the market, due to our fully innovative and customer-driven approach. Discover them and compare them to the solutions provided you by our competitors.