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CMM® based appraisals compare the maturity of software development organisations' processes against industry best practice. To ensure good buy-in, appraisals involve everyone from top management to the most junior team member. The results give clear guidance on where and how to make improvements. CMM® makes organisations value the transition from individual expertise (heroes) to team expertise and, ultimately, a learning organisation.
Worldwide experience with CMM® shows it is possible to significantly reduce costs, cycle times and staff turnover, while improving predictability and quality.
CMM® was started to address problems in the US defence industry.
Appraisal results often highlight shortcomings in the use of size measures to estimate and track work output.
In a way, you can think of the CMM® as a 'bottom up' approach.
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QPeP benchmarks give quantitative comparisons of performance. A benchmark study enables an organisation to compare itself and its projects against other similar organisations and projects. It not only highlights strengths and weaknesses, but also how performance varies with factors such as application size, technology level etc. It shows how effort, time and quality can be traded.
Quantitative benchmarking, of which the PEP service is one of the longest established, started in business software. It is based on the availability in that domain of Function Point methods for measuring work output.
The results of a QPeP benchmark, however, are of great interest to top management. They give immediate data about the value for money that the software organisation is delivering, with pointers to quick actions that can be taken to improve performance by changing the way work is allocated and managed.
External benchmarking is a 'top down' approach to performance improvement.
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