The Capability Maturity Model for Software

This paper provides an overview of the latest version of the Capability Maturity Model for Software, CMM v1.1. Based on over six years of experience with software process improvement and the contributions of hundreds of reviewers, CMM v1.1 describes the software engineering and management practices that characterize organizations as they mature their processes for developing and maintaining software. This paper stresses the need for a process maturity framework to prioritize improvement actions, describes the process maturity framework of five maturity levels and the associated structural components, and discusses future directions for the CMM. Keywords: capability maturity model, CMM, process maturity framework, software process improvement, process capability, process performance, maturity level, key process area, software process assessment, software capability evaluation. 1 1 Introduction After two decades of unfulfilled promises about productivity and quality gains from applyi...