CMMI (Capability Maturity Model Integration) is a process improvement framework that can be used to appraise an organization's process maturity. It addresses three areas: product/service development, service management, and product/service acquisition. CMMI models include staged and continuous representations. Staged provides a standard sequence of improvements while continuous allows a focus on important processes. There are five maturity levels from 2 (Managed) to 5 (Optimizing). Key process areas include requirements management, project monitoring and control, and organizational process definition. CMMI helps organizations improve processes, reduce costs and cycle times, and increase quality.