On Improving CMMI in an Immature World of Software Development

During the last decade, software engineering researchers have tried to identify the success and obstacle factors to the software development. Conclusions from many of the researches related to the issue show that software process is one of the most important subjects contributing into the success or failure to the software development. Among the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI), the ISO9000 series, Total Quality Management, and other best process practices, the CMMI is the one specially focusing on the software development. However, as evolving from the Capability Maturity Model for Software (SW-CMM), the CMMI has inherited some process issues that can severely degrade the effectiveness of process maturity of an organization. In this paper, we demonstrate some of the issues existing in current version of the CMMI. The upward only maturity level certification method is a major issue. Another major issue for the CMMI is its lack of process practice(s) for organizations and their suppliers that have higher maturity level than they do. Some possible remedies for those issues are also proposed to improve the CMMI.