Capability Maturity Model

The Capability Maturity Model (CMM) is a development model created after study of data collected from organizations that contracted with the U.S. Department of Defense, who funded the research. The term "maturity" relates to the degree of formality and optimization of processes, from ad hoc practices, to formally defined steps, to managed result metrics, to active optimization of the processes.

The model's aim is to improve existing software-development processes, but it can also be applied to other processes.

Overview

The Capability Maturity Model was originally developed as a tool for objectively assessing the ability of government contractors' processes to perform a contracted software project. The model is based on the process maturity framework first described in the 1989 book Managing the Software Process by Watts Humphrey. It was later published in a report in 1993 and as a book by the same authors in 1995.

Though the model comes from the field of software development, it is also used as a general model to aid in business processes generally, and has been used extensively worldwide in government offices, commerce, industry and software-development organizations.

Lately, capability model is used as capability based planning approach to design the business services as capabilities in business architecture. IT Capabilities Model includes Structured Operating Model (SOM), Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and Service Oriented Infrastructure (SOI), as proposed by Haloedscape.

History

Prior need for software processes

In the 1960s, the use of computers grew more widespread, more flexible and less costly. Organizations began to adopt computerized information systems, and the demand for software development grew significantly. Many processes for software development were in their infancy, with few standard or "best practice" approaches defined.

As a result, the growth was accompanied by growing pains: project failure was common, and the field...