Process Management and

Improvement – 2 - CMMI

Lecture # 40

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Capability Maturity
Model Integration

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 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

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 The CMMI product suite is at the forefront
of process improvement because it provide
the latest best practices for product and
service development and maintenance
 The CMMI models improve the best
practices of previous models in many
important ways

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Benefits of CMMI - 1
 CMMI best practices enable organizations
to do the following
 More explicitly link management and
engineering activities to their business
objectives
 Expand the scope of and visibility into the
product lifecycle and engineering activities to
ensure that the product or service meets
customer expectations

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Benefits of CMMI - 2
 Incorporate lessons learned from additional
areas of best practices (e.g., measurement,
risk management, and supplier management)
 Implement more robust high-maturity
practices
 Address additional organizational functions
critical to their products and services
 More fully comply with relevant ISO standards

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Background of CMMI
 CMM-SW: CMM Software
 SE CMM: System Engineering CMM
 SA CMM: Software Acquisition CMM
 IPD CMM: Integrated Product Development Team
CMM
 System Engineering Capability Assessment
Model (SECAM)
 System Engineering Capability Model (SECM)

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 Use CMMI in process improvement activities as a
 Collection of best practices
 Framework for organizing and prioritizing activities
 Support for the coordination of multi-disciplined activities
that might be required to successfully build a product
 Means to emphasize the alignment of the process
improvement objectives with organization business
objectives

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 A CMMI model is not a process
 CMMI is a collection of best practices from
highly functioning organizations collected
to help you improve your processes by
describing what things or activities should
be done in your organization
 A CMMI model describes the
characteristics of effective processes

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 All of the source models for CMMI are considered
capability maturity models; however, each has a
different approach. Review and examination of
each source model led to the discovery of two
types of approaches to presenting capability
maturity models. These types of approaches have
been given the label "representations" in the
process improvement community. A
representation reflects the organization, use, and
presentation of components in a model

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 All capability maturity models have process areas
that are defined by levels. An example of a process
area is Project Planning. There are two types of
CMMI model representations: staged and
continuous.
 Two of the source models use other terms for the
concept of a process area. The Software CMM
uses the term key process areas; the SECM uses
the term focus areas.

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Staged Representation
 The staged representation is the approach used in
the Software CMM. It is an approach that uses
predefined sets of process areas to define an
improvement path for an organization. This
improvement path is described by a model
component called a maturity level
 A maturity level is a well-defined evolutionary
plateau toward achieving improved organizational
processes

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Continuous Representation
 The continuous representation is the approach
used in the SECM and the IPD-CMM. This
approach allows an organization to select a
specific process area and improve relative to it
 The continuous representation uses capability
levels to characterize improvement relative to an
individual process area

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CMMI Model Structure
 Maturity Levels (staged representation) or
Capability Levels (continuous
representation)
 Process Areas
 Goals – Generic and Specific
 Practices – Generic and Specific

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Staged
Representation

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CMMI Model Components in the
Staged Representation

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 The staged representation offers a
systematic, structured way to approach
process improvement one step at a time.
Achieving each stage ensures that an
adequate improvement has been laid as a
foundation for the next stage

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 Process areas are organized by maturity levels
that take much of the guess work out of process
improvement. The staged representation
prescribes the order for implementing each
process area according to maturity levels, which
define the improvement path for an organization
from the initial level to the optimizing level.
Achieving each maturity level ensures that an
adequate improvement foundation has been laid
for the next maturity level and allows for lasting,
incremental improvement

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Maturity Level
 Maturity level signifies the level of
performance that can be expected from an
organization
 There are five maturity levels

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Maturity Levels
 Adhoc
 Managed
 Defined
 Quantitatively Managed
 Optimizing

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Process Areas
 Each maturity level consists of several
process area
 A process area is a group of practices or
activities performed collectively in order to
achieve a specific objective

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Goals
 Each PA has several goals that need to be
satisfied in order to satisfy the objectives of
the PA. There are two types of goals:
 Specific goals (SG): goals that relate only to
the specific PA under study
 Generic goals (GG): goals that are common to
multiple process areas throughout the model.
These goals help determine whether the PA
has been institutionalized

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Practices
 Practices are activities that must be
performed to satisfy the goals for each PA.
Each practice relates to only one goal.
There are two types of practices:
 Specific practices (SP): practices that relate to
specific goals
 Generic practices (GP): practices associated
with the generic goals for institutionalization

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Level 1: Adhoc

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Level 2: Defined - 1
 Adhering to organizational policies
 Following a documented plan and process
description
 Applying adequate funding and resources
 Maintaining appropriate assignment of
responsibility and authority
 Training people in their appropriate processes
 Placing work products under appropriate
configuration management

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Level 2: Defined - 2
 Monitoring and controlling process performance,
and taking corrective action
 Objectively reviewing the process, work products,
and services, and addressing noncompliance
 Reviewing the activities, status, and results of the
process with appropriate levels of management,
and taking corrective action
 Identifying and interacting with relevant
stakeholders

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Level 3: Managed - 1
 The organization has achieved all of the
goals of Level 2. There is an
organizational way of doing business, with
tailoring of this organizational method
allowed under predefined conditions. The
organization has an organization’s set of
standard processes (OSSP)

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Level 3: Managed - 2
 The following characteristics of the process are
clearly stated
 Purpose
 Inputs
 Entry criteria
 Activities
 Roles
 Measures
 Verification steps
 Outputs
 Exit criteria

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Level 3: Managed - 3
 Level 3 continues with defining a strong, meaningful,
organization-wide approach to developing products. An
important distinction between Level 2 and Level 3 is
that at Level 3, processes are described in more detail
and more rigorously than at Level 2. Processes are
managed more proactively, based on a more
sophisticated understanding of the interrelationships
and measurements of the processes and parts of the
processes. Level 3 is more sophisticated, more
organized, and establishes an organizational identity—
a way of doing business particular to this organization

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Level 4: Quantitatively Managed
 The organization controls its processes by
statistical and other quantitative
techniques. Product quality, process
performance, and service quality are
understood in statistical terms and are
managed throughout the life of the
processes

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Level 5: Optimizing
 Processes are continually improved based
on an understanding of common causes of
variation within the processes
 Level 5 is nirvana
 Everyone is a productive member of the
team, defects are reduced, and your
product is delivered on time and within the
estimated budget

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Continuous
Representation

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CMMI Model Components in the
Continuous Representation

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 The continuous representation offers a flexible
approach to process improvement. An
organization may choose to improve the
performance of a single process-related trouble
spot, or it can work on several areas that are
closely aligned to the organization's business
objectives. The continuous representation also
allows an organization to improve different
processes at different rates. There are some
limitations on an organization's choices because
of the dependencies among some process areas

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Continuous Representation
 The continuous representation uses the
same basic structure as the staged
representation.
 However, each PA belongs to a Process
Area Category. A Process Area Category
is just a simple way of arranging PAs by
their related, primary functions

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 Capability levels are used to measure the
improvement path through each process area
from an unperformed process to an optimizing
process. For example, an organization may wish
to strive for reaching capability level 2 in one
process area and capability level 4 in another. As
the organization's process reaches a capability
level, it sets its sights on the next capability level
for that same process area or decides to widen
its scope and create the same level of capability
across a larger number of process areas

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Process Area Categories
 Process management
 Project management
 Engineering
 Support

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Process Management
 Organizational Process Focus
 Organizational Process Definition (with
Integrated Product and Process
Development—IPPD)
 Organizational Training
 Organizational Process Performance
 Organizational Innovation and Deployment

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Project Management
 Project Planning
 Project Monitoring and Control
 Supplier Agreement Management
 Integrated Project Management (with
Integrated Product and Process
Development—IPPD)
 Risk Management
 Quantitative Project Management

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Engineering
 Requirements Development
 Requirements Management
 Technical Solution
 Product Integration
 Verification
 Validation
 (listed in increasing order of complexity)

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Support
 Configuration Management
 Process and Product Quality Assurance
 Measurement and Analysis
 Decision Analysis and Resolution
 Causal Analysis and Resolution

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Goals and Practices
 Specific goals and practices relate to
specific process areas and relate to tasks
that make sense for that process area
only. For example, Project Planning
requires a project plan. Quantitative
Project Management requires a process
performance baseline

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 Generic goals and practices relate to
multiple process areas.

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 CMMI focuses on institutionalization. Goals
cannot be achieved without proving
institutionalization of the process. Generic goals
and generic practices support institutionalization
and increasing sophistication of the process.
Specific goals and specific practices support
implementation of the process area. Process
maturity and capability evolve. Process
improvement and increased capability are built
in stages because some processes are
ineffective when others are not stable

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 The continuous representation has the same
basic information as the staged representation,
just arranged differently; that is, in capability
levels not maturity levels, and process area
categories. The continuous representation
focuses process improvement on actions to be
completed within process areas, yet the
processes and their actions may span different
levels. More sophistication in implementing the
practices is expected at the different levels.
These levels are called capability levels

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 There are six capability levels
 Level 0: Incomplete
 Level 1: Performed
 Level 2: Managed
 Level 3: Defined
 Level 4: Quantitatively Managed
 Level 5: Optimizing

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 What’s a capability level? Capability levels
focus on maturing the organization’s ability
to perform, control, and improve its
performance in a process area. This ability
allows the organization to focus on specific
areas to improve performance of that area

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Level 0: Incomplete
 An incomplete process does not
implement all of the Capability Level 1
specific practices in the process area that
has been selected. This is tantamount to
Maturity Level 1 in the staged
representation

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Level 1: Performed
 A Capability Level 1 process is a process that is
expected to perform all of the Capability Level 1
specific practices. Performance may not be stable
and may not meet specific objectives such as
quality, cost, and schedule, but useful work can be
done
 This is only a start, or baby step, in process
improvement. It means you are doing something,
but you cannot prove that it is really working for
you

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Level 2: Managed
 A managed process is planned, performed,
monitored, and controlled for individual projects,
groups, or stand-alone processes to achieve a
given purpose. Managing the process achieves
both the model objectives for the process as well
as other objectives, such as cost, schedule, and
quality. As the title of this level states, you are
actively managing the way things are done in
your organization. You have some metrics that
are consistently collected and applied to your
management approach

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Level 3: Defined
 A defined process is a managed process that is
tailored from the organization’s set of standard
processes. Deviations beyond those allowed by
the tailoring guidelines are documented, justified,
reviewed, and approved. The organization’s set of
standard processes is just a fancy way of saying
that your organization has an identity. That is,
there is an organizational way of doing work that
differs from the way another organization within
your company may do it

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Level 4: Quantitatively Managed
 A quantitatively managed process is a
defined process that is controlled using
statistical and other quantitative techniques.
Product quality, service quality, process
performance, and other business objectives
are understood in statistical terms and are
controlled throughout the life cycle

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Level 5: Optimizing
 An optimizing process is a quantitatively managed
process that is improved based on an
understanding of the common causes of process
variation inherent in the process. It focuses on
continually improving process performance
through both incremental and innovative
improvements. Both the defined processes and
the organization’s set of standard processes are
targets of improvement activities

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Summary

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References
 http://www.sei.cmu.edu/general/index.html
 Interpreting the CMMI: A Process
Improvement Approach, Second Edition,
by Margaret K. Kulpa and Kent A.
Johnson, Auerbach Publication, 2008
(electronic file), (Chapter 1-4)

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