CMMI
Also known as: Capability Maturity Model Integration
Five-level process maturity model: Initial, Managed, Defined, Quantitatively Managed, Optimizing.
CMMI is the successor to the Capability Maturity Model (CMM) developed by the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon, which itself emerged from Watts Humphrey's process-improvement work in the late 1980s. CMM v1.1 was published in 1993 for software, and CMMI v1.1 followed in 2002 to integrate multiple separate CMMs covering software, systems engineering, and supplier sourcing. The framework offers two representations: staged (organization rated at maturity levels 1-5: Initial, Managed, Defined, Quantitatively Managed, Optimizing) and continuous (process areas rated independently at capability levels 0-3 in CMMI v2.0). Stewardship moved from SEI to the CMMI Institute in 2012 and to ISACA in 2016; CMMI v2.0, published in 2018, restructured around practice areas and a digital model rather than the prior printed reference model.
Core components
- Five maturity levels (Initial, Managed, Defined, Quantitatively Managed, Optimizing)
- Capability levels (0-3 in v2.0)
- Practice areas (CMMI v2.0)
- Constellations historically (Development, Services, Acquisition)
- SCAMPI/Benchmark appraisal method
- Staged vs continuous representations
Primary use case
Process maturity assessment and improvement, particularly in software and systems engineering organizations; supplier qualification, particularly for US DoD contracting prior to CMMC; improvement roadmap reference.
Common criticisms
- Documentation orientation can produce process bureaucracy without quality improvement
- appraisal cost is substantial
- level-chasing as marketing rather than capability building
- tension with agile and lean practices
- criticized as misapplied where ad hoc but effective practices already exist
- commercial control under ISACA limits accessibility.
Lineage
- Siblings
- ITIL, COBIT, ISO 9001