The Capability Maturity Model (CMM) is a framework that was developed in 1986 by the Software Engineering Institute to evaluate the maturity of software development processes in organizations. It consists of 5 levels of process maturity from initial/ad hoc processes to optimized processes. The CMM was originally intended to assess government contractors' ability to manage software projects but can also be applied more generally to understand process maturity across various domains like software engineering, systems engineering, project management, risk management, IT and human resources management. It helps define and improve the processes used within an organization.