Capability Maturity Models

Software Measurement Services provides a range of CMM^® and CMMI^® based consultancy and training services, designed to assist clients to improve their processes for software development and maintenance.

The Capability Maturity Model^® defined five Levels of maturity of software processes, namely:

1. Initial

2. Repeatable

3. Defined

4. Managed

5. Optimising.

At each Level, Key Process Areas define the processes which should be mastered before moving to the next Level. The general experience is that, for most organisations, accepting the value of process improvement and making the first step from Level 1 to Level 2 is the most difficult.

The CMM^® was developed by the Software Engineering Institute (SEI^sm) of Carnegie-Mellon University. It is almost certainly the most widely used method of assessing software process maturity. Increasingly, organisations that procure software demand that their suppliers have reached a certain maturity level.

The CMMI^® (the Capability Maturity Model^® Integrated for Systems Engineering / Software Engineering / Integrated Product and Process Development) is the latest evolution of the Software Engineering Institute's popular model for process improvement.