CMMI® (Capability Maturity Model® Integration) consists of best practices that address the development and maintenance of products and services covering the product life cycle from conception through delivery and maintenance.

A product can be an airplane, a digital camera, a video game component, an automated teller machine, a missile guidance system, or a software package available from a commercial retailer. It can also be a service such as delivering a training class, technical support for a software product, long-distance telephone service, data-processing services, and online banking.

CMMI integrates bodies of knowledge that are essential when developing products, but that have been addressed separately in the past, such as software engineering, systems engineering, and acquisition. By integrating these bodies of knowledge, CMMI provides a comprehensive solution for development and maintenance of products and services.

Purpose of This Book

This book is an extension of the CMMI Framework,1 which generated the full set of CMMI models released by the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) in January 2002. To use a CMMI model released by the SEI, you must choose from among the multiple models available based on your improvement needs. Therefore, to use the CMMI models published by the SEI, you need to know the content of each model and the area that you want to improve.

Unfortunately for many users, selecting a model from the SEI Web site appears difficult because they must make the up-front decision about which bodies of knowledge they want to address in their organizations and the approach they want to take to their process improvement efforts.

To facilitate CMMI use, this book provides a single source for all CMMI model information--a functional equivalent of the CMMI Framework. You do not have to select a particular model to get started--all of your choices are compiled here into one book. The book describes what is common across all CMMI models as well as what is different. It describes the basic concepts and the ways processes evolve as your organization improves. It will help you to understand the content of each CMMI model and to decide how CMMI can best address your needs.

Audience

The audience for this book includes anyone interested in process improvement--whether you are familiar with the concept of Capability Maturity Models or whether you are seeking information to get started on your improvement efforts. It is intended for people who want an appraisal2 to see where they are, those who already know what they want to improve, and those who are just getting started and want to develop a general understanding of CMMI. This book is a must-have for process appraisal teams; members of process improvement groups; product development managers; product developers and maintainers, including software and systems engineers; and project management, computer science, and engineering educators.

Organization of This Book

This book maintains the integrity of the CMMI v1.1 models available on the SEI's Web site and serves as a guide for improvement of organizational processes. It is organized into three main parts:

• Part One--About CMMI
• Part Two--The Process Areas
• Part Three--The Appendices and Glossary

In writing this book, we enhanced and supplemented the original SEI materials. These improvements appear in Part One. Given the nature of the material in Part Two, we made only minor changes and added markings to identify and classify the content. In the glossary in Part Three, we've compiled a practical resource for understanding the "language" of CMMI.

Part One, "About CMMI," consists of seven chapters:

• Chapter 1, "Introduction," offers a broad view of CMMI. It introduces you
• to the concepts of process improvement and describes the benefits of CMMI, the history of models used for process improvement, and different process improvement approaches.
• Chapter 2, "Process Area Components," describes all of the components of the CMMI process areas.
• Chapter 3, "Process Institutionalization," describes the model components
• that ensure that the implementation of processes is effective, repeatable, and lasting.
• Chapter 4, "Relationships among Process Areas," provides insight into the meaning and interactions of the major CMMI components.
• Chapter 5, "Tying It All Together," assembles the model components and process infrastructure into the representations and explains the concepts of maturity level and capability level.
• Chapter 6, "Using CMMI Models," describes paths to adoption and use of CMMI for process improvement and benchmarking.
• Chapter 7, "A CMMI Case Study: United Space Alliance, LLC," describes the real-life experiences of an organization as it prepared to adopt CMMI. This chapter may help you plan your own organization's adoption of CMMI.

Part Two, "The Process Areas," contains 25 sections, one for each of the CMMI process areas.3 To facilitate your referring to them, these chapters are organized alphabetically by process area acronym. Each chapter contains descriptions of goals, best practices, and examples.

Part Three, "The Appendices and Glossary," consists of four information resources:

• Appendix A, "References," contains references you can use to locate documented sources of information such as reports, process-improvement models, industry standards, and books that are related to CMMI.
• Appendix B, "Acronyms," defines the acronyms used in CMMI.
• Appendix C, "CMMI Project Participants," contains a list of people and their organizations who participated in the CMMI project. That project developed the models on which this book is based.
• The "Glossary" defines the terms used in CMMI.

How to Use This Book

Whether you are new to process improvement, new to CMMI, or already familiar with CMMI, this book can help you understand why CMMI is the best model to use for improving your product life-cycle processes.

Readers New to Process Improvement

If you are new to process improvement or new to the CMM® concept, we suggest that you read chapter 1, "Introduction," and the case study in chapter 7 first. Chapter 1 will give you an overview of process improvement and explain what CMMI is all about. Chapter 7 will help you to see how CMMI can be used by an organization. When you read chapter 7 the first time, don't be concerned about understanding all the terminology or details. Just read it to get an overall feel for what's going on in the case study. Then, go back and read chapters 1 through 7. When you read chapter 7 again, after reading the balance of Part One, you will understand the details much better.

Next, skim Part Two to get a feel for the scope of the best practices contained in CMMI. Pay closest attention to the statement of purpose at the beginning of each section.

In Part Three, look through the references in Appendix A and select additional sources you think would be beneficial to read before moving forward with using CMMI. Read through the acronyms and glossary to become familiar with the language of CMMI. Then, go back and read the details of Part Two.

Readers Experienced with Process Improvement

If you are new to CMMI but have experience with other process-improvement models, such as the Software CMM or the Systems Engineering CM (i.e., EIA 731), you will immediately recognize many similarities.

We recommend that you read Part One to understand how CMMI is different from other process-improvement models, but you may want to read some of the sections more quickly than others. Read Part Two with an eye open for best practices you recognize from the models you have already tried. Identifying familiar material gives you a feel for what is new and what has been carried over from the model you already know.

Next, review the glossary to understand how some terminology may differ from that used in the process-improvement model you know. Many concepts will be repeated, but they may be called something different.

Readers Familiar with CMMI

If you have reviewed or used one of the CMMI models available on the SEI Web site, you will quickly recognize the CMMI concepts discussed and the best practices presented. The differences between this book and the SEI-released models are mainly found in Part One, "About CMMI."

Although the continuous and staged representations of the models' best practices are presented together in Part Two, no changes were made that affect the meaning or applicability of these best practices. In Part One, we added information about the benefits of process improvement and historical information about process-improvement models for readers new to process improvement or to the CMM, concept. We explained the vast similarities of the two representations reflected in the models and included detailed discussions of both capability levels and maturity levels and their importance in CMMI. To understand how the two representations have been formatted for Part Two, see the descriptions and illustrations of typographical conventions (Figures 2.2, 2.3, and 2.4) in chapter 2.

We also expanded the discussion of generic model components into a chapter that you will find more informative than what is found in the SEI-released models (see chapter 3). A chapter containing a case study of CMMI (chapter 7) was added to describe the real-life experience of an organization preparing to adopt CMMI.

In Part Three, "The Appendices and Glossary," we combined all terms and their definitions into the glossary, so that you can find definitions more quickly and easily. Terms are no longer addressed in a separate chapter in Part One.

As you read Part One, we recommend that you pay closest attention to chapter 3, "Process Institutionalization," and chapter 7, "CMMI Case Study: United Space Alliance, LLC." Review the format used in Part Two. This format helps you differentiate between the two representations.

Additional Information and Reader Feedback

You can find additional information from various other sources about CMMI, such as the background and history of the CMMI models, as well as the benefits of using CMMI models. Many of these sources are listed in Appendix A and are also documented on the CMMI Web site--http://www.sei.cmu.edu/cmmi/.

Suggestions for improving CMMI are welcomed by the SEI. For information on how to provide feedback, see the CMMI Web site at http://www.sei.cmu.edu/cmmi/models/change-requests.html. If you have questions about CMMI, send an e-mail to cmmi-comments@sei.cmu.edu.