CMMI Level

Can any one give me the detailed information about CMMI level?

thnx in advance

Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) is a process improvement approach that provides organizations with the essential elements of effective processes. It can be used to guide process improvement across a project, a division, or an entire organization. CMMI helps integrate traditionally separate organizational functions, set process improvement goals and priorities, provide guidance for quality processes, and provide a point of reference for appraising current processes.

CMMI is advanced to CMM .CMM has 18 KPA's (Key Process Areas) where CMMI has 22 KPAs

[quote=bhavana_20;27842]can any one give me the detailed information about cmmi level?[/quote] hi bhavana capability maturity model integration is a process improvement approach that provides organizations with the essential elements of effective processes. Cmmi is the successor of the cmm or software cmm. The goal of the cmmi project is to improve the usability of maturity models by integrating many different models into one framework. Cmmi helps integrate traditionally separate organizational functions, set process improvement goals and priorities, provide guidance for quality processes, and provide a point of reference for appraising current processes. There are no levels in cmmi but there are 22 key process areas in cmmi regards, ganesan

hi i would like to know what are the 18 KPA's(key process areas) and the 24 KPA's

Hi All ,

The CMMI level is an interesting concept for this discussion.thanks those whoever initiated this thread.

The key process areas is hard to discuss as a conversation, you may wonder, if you were aware of diploma in software capability maturity model undertaken by indian institute of management & technology.

Anyway let me try to brief you the concept on KPA there are five maturity model which provide top level structure of the CMM.Each maturity level is decomposed into several key process areas that indicate where the organisation should focus to improve its software process.

Each process area identifies a cluster of related activities that when performed collectively achieve a set of goals enhancing process capability.

[B]key process areas at level 1 :

[/B]The software process is amorphous entity a black box and visibility into project's processes is limited.staging of activities are poorly developed at this level.

[B]key process areas at level 2:[/B]

key process area at this level focus on software project's concerns related to establishing basic project management controls.

[B]key process areas at level 3: [/B] at this level address both project and organisational issues,as the organisation establishes an infrastructure that institutionalizes effective software engineering and management processes across all projects.

[B]key process area at level 4: [/B] at this key level focus on establishing a quantitative understanding of both the software process and the software products being built.

[B]key process areas at level 5: [/B] this level cover the issues that both the organisation and the projects must address to implement continuous and measurable software process improvements all of the above kpa's can be explained in detail probably can be published as a book that would tell you 18 and 22 kpa's.

If you google it you could find lot of them.

There is separate forum for cmm : [URL="http://www.capability-users.com"]cmm / cmmi capability maturity model user group[/URL] [B]

some of cmmi certified companies :[/B]

The david consulting group (dcg), an SEI CMMI approved
Pragmatics is CMMI level 4 certified
Indicus software cmmi level 3 certified
Mitsue-links achieves cmmi level 2 first in the japanese web industry
Espire infolabs cmmi level 5 certified

cmm is like an ocean where it never ends ,you can keep learning....

Hope these helped you

Happy learning,
sridevi chitthu

Thanks for giving a lot information about CMMI.

Hi Peeyush jain,

Nice to meet you all in Forum,Thank for wonderful thread discussed.

Thanks,
Sridevichitthu

CMM is a reference model in a specified discipline for e.g. Systems Engineering CMM, Software CMM, People CMM, Software Acquisition CMM etc. But they were difficult to integrate as and when needed. So the CMMI evolved as a more matured set of guidelines and was built combining the best components of individual disciplines of CMM(Software CMM, People CMM etc).

Initial :Level company
Repeate :Level 2 company
defined: Level 3 company.
managed: Level 4 company.
optimised: Level 5 company.

[b]cmmi[/b] - capability maturity model integrated it is a process improvement approach that helps organizations improve their performance. Cmmi can be used to guide process improvement across a project, a division, or an entire organization.

According to the software engineering institute (sei, 2008), cmmi helps "integrate traditionally separate organizational functions, set process improvement goals and priorities, provide guidance for quality processes, and provide a point of reference for appraising current processes"

[b] latest version: 1.2[/b]

[b]cmmi representation:[/b]
1. Staged representation [list=1][*]staged representation [list][*]governed by a single maturity rating at the organization level[*]organization maturity is assumed to be progressive[*]transition from s/w cmm to cmmi- staged is easy[/list][*]continuous representation [list][*]process improvement is encouraged process area wise[*]capability rating is provided to each process area[*]not aligned to s/w cmm[/list][/list][B]maturity levels and process areas:[/B] [list=1][*]maturity level 1 : initial[*]maturity level 2 : managed [list][*]project planning[*]project monitoring and control[*]supplier agreement management[*]requirements management[*]measurement & analysis[*]configuration management[*]process and product quality assurance[/list][*]maturity level 3 : defined [list][*]integrated project management[*]risk management[*]requirement development[*]technical solution[*]product integration[*]verification[*]validation[*]decision analysis and resolution[*]organization process focus[*]organizational process definition[*]organizational training[/list][*]maturity level 4 : quantitatively managed [list][*]quantitative project management[*]organizational process performance[/list][*]maturity level 5 : optimizing [list][*]causal analysis and resolution[*]organizational innovation and deployment[/list][/list]

Can Anyone provide some information about the certification available for the the CMMI Levels.

The [B]capability maturity model (cmm)[/B] is a service mark owned by carnegie mellon university (cmu) and refers to a development model elicited from actual data an organization may be assessed by an sei-authorized lead appraiser, and will then be able to claim that they have been assessed as cmm level x, where x is from 1 to 5. Although sometimes called [B]cmm-certification [/B]

[B]cmmi level 1[/B]: cmmi level 1 is lower-most (or initial) maturity level of an organization when we refer to the staged representation of cmmi. Any organization which does not belong to any other level is considered to belong to level 1 (or level 0 as it should be).
This level is characterized by following:
1. There is no predictability in schedule, budget, scope or quality.
2. The organization has some pockets of excellence - which basically means that there are only a few people or things that the organization can do well.
3. The success of a project depends on the heroism of a few key players.
4. The organization is people-dependent. Infact, all organizations are people dependent but in the context of cmmi this basically means the risk due attrition is very high. The know-how of a project is lost with the developer who was working on it and there is no organizational learning.
5. There is no formal or very poor planning process.
6. The discipline of management and engineering is weak and inadequate
[B]cmmi level 2:[/B]
level 2 is the managed level. At this level the organization sort of wakes up and instead of blaming its people it starts looking at its current processes as the main cause behind its inefficiencies. The following are the main characteristics of a level 2 organization:
1. The organization starts making realistic project commitments and key projects elements like cost, schedule and scope is tracked.
2. The organization defines a clear policy for project management and begins to plan the projects formally. The discipline to tracking actual project performance and comparing it to the planned performance is also instilled. So, the organization can take some proactive corrective actions if the project get delayed or exceeds it allocated budget.
3. All the projects requirements and work-products are change managed. The changes to scope are always consolidated back into the main requirement document so that a single document containing all customer requirements are always available.
4. Relationships with both internal and external suppliers are formally managed. All stakeholders outside the control of the project team may be treated as a supplier.
5. Quality assurance becomes a formal process. All issues in a project are recorded for future analysis. Still at level 2, there specific implementation of a process may differ from project to project. This happens because the employees may interpret same thing in different ways. Thus, projects may be doing there things in their own separate ways. Even at level 2 the although the organization builds project discipline, but there is still no process discipline. Things like coding practices, documentation practices etc may differ across different projects within the same organization. Thus, the results of each project may vary to a large extent. The feeling of this is how we do things here is non existent. This can also be seen from the fact that at level 2 there is no process area under process management thread.
[B]Cmmi level 3[/B]:
cmmi level 3 or the defined level is a stage when the processes and its interpretation get institutionalized across the organization.
The following are the main characteristics of a level 3 organization:
1. An engineering process group or epg (as it more commonly known) is formed. This is headed by someone from the senior management to ensure proper management commitment is there. This group is then responsible to managing the organization processes.
2. Quality management system or qms document is generated which contains documentation regarding all processes. All projects must refer to this qms and contribute back to it. It is very important as it leads to organizational learning. Here is how it works: suppose project a has made some process improvement or innovations, these are then fed back to the qms. So when project b is starting, it automatically shares the best practices of project a. This ensures that organization keeps on improving and all projects share the common process.
3. Continuous organizational training ensures that qms is interpreted in the same way by everybody
4. Engineering and management activities are more aligned with each other.
5. The engineering discipline gets more effective and the capability of the organization to delivery quality products is greatly enhanced. In reference to cmmi, level 3 contains the maximum number of process areas that needs to be addressed.
[B]Cmmi level 4:[/B]
at level 4 or quantitatively managed level, the organization focuses on managing the projects and processes through the usage of statistical tools. This brings into picture the usage of data that the organization has started to collect at level 3.
Here is an overview of an level 4 organization:
1. Threshold values are established for each process area. For example, you may want to control the scope of the project more rigorously. So, you may define a threshold value that says that if the requirement is changed by more than 20% then re-planning and re-estimation will be required. All projects then need to ensure that requirements remain within the defined threshold values.
2. All variations from the threshold value is determined and assigned to either special causes or common causes. Common causes can be thought of, as the causes for deviation that exist within the organization, for example improper training, improper risk management etc. Special causes can be though of reasons that exist beyond organizations direct control. This can be things like continuously changing customer requirements, no access to validation area etc
3. The focus of the organization is to narrow down these threshold values i.e. If today the threshold for delivery schedule is 10% then the focus it to narrow it down to 7% or less.
4. The quality of projects that the organization delivers it of high quality.
5. All projects are managed and controlled using quantitative data.
[B] Cmmi level 5[/B]:
cmmi level 5 or the optimizing level is different from all of its predecessor stages. The word optimizing itself emphasizes a sense of continuity. In all essence, it is a stage of continuous process improvement. Here is how an organization at level 5 may look like: since the entire organization works using a common process and collects common data, the only way to improve the organization is improve the process itself. Thus, incremental updates are made to the process. The improvement can be made by the usage of a new technique, tool and technology.
1. The organization depends on innovation for continual improvements.
2. The areas of weaknesses are identified and root cause is determined using causal analysis (like pareto analysis etc). The root cause of it then addressed. All common and special causes of variations are either eliminated or their impact is minimized.
3. Although all any process can be improved but the organization depends on cost-benefit analysis to select the process area which is most painful. The process having the highest priority is addressed first.

[B][B]CMMI Levels[/B]

Level 1 - Initial (Chaotic)[/B]
It is characteristic of processes at this level that they are (typically) undocumented and in a state of dynamic change, tending to be driven in an ad hoc, uncontrolled and reactive manner by users or events. This provides a chaotic or unstable environment for the processes.
[B]Level 2 - Repeatable[/B]
It is characteristic of processes at this level that some processes are repeatable, possibly with consistent results. Process discipline is unlikely to be rigorous, but where it exists it may help to ensure that existing processes are maintained during times of stress.
[B]Level 3 - Defined[/B]
It is characteristic of processes at this level that there are sets of defined and documented standard processes established and subject to some degree of improvement over time. These standard processes are in place (i.e., they are the AS-IS processes) and used to establish consistency of process performance across the organization.
[B]Level 4 - Managed[/B]
It is characteristic of processes at this level that, using process metrics, management can effectively control the AS-IS process (e.g., for software development ). In particular, management can identify ways to adjust and adapt the process to particular projects without measurable losses of quality or deviations from specifications. Process Capability is established from this level.
[B]Level 5 - Optimizing[/B]
It is a characteristic of processes at this level that the focus is on continually improving process performance through both incremental and innovative technological changes/improvements.
At maturity level 5, processes are concerned with addressing statistical common causes of process variation and changing the process (for example, to shift the mean of the process performance) to improve process performance. This would be done at the same time as maintaining the likelihood of achieving the established quantitative process-improvement objectives.