CMMI was developed in the 1980s by the Software Engineering Institute to help organizations improve processes for developing software after many projects failed to be delivered on time and budget. The CMMI model identifies 25 processes areas that organizations can implement to improve capabilities and maturity in managing projects. Adopting CMMI has become a market demand as contractors providing software to the government must follow CMMI, and competing companies are using it for best practices. CMMI aims to improve an organization's performance and ability to consistently deliver high-quality products and services to customers. It provides a framework for comprehensive process improvement across three constellations: development, acquisition, and services.

1. An analysis of whether we need CMMI at all, and the reason why Presented by Why CMMI ??

2. Brief History of CMMI In the 1980s a Standish Group study found that over 30% of all large software projects failed to be delivered, and, of the remaining, nearly 80% failed to come in on time and budget To beat these odds, and to lower the overall cost of buying software, the Department of Defense funded the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) at Carnegie Mellon University to find ways to help defense contractors build software more economically. Result became the Capability Maturity Model for software, or CMM. Today, the CMM/CMMI are the de facto standard for software management throughout the Federal government and is internationally recognized as a very powerful business tool and competitive differentiator.

3. CMMI : few structural concepts The SEI identified 25 total process areas and put them into the CMMI. There are two ways to apply the 25 processes depending on which approach suits the development shop best. They can choose to apply pre-determined processes in a specific sequence to achieve "maturity" in managing development, or, they can choose the processes most important to their business and apply the necessary rigor to achieve a "capability" for managing development. The "maturity" scale has 5 levels And, the "capability" scale has 6 levels the "maturity" levels are pre-defined, the approach is called "staged." The "capability" approach is called "continuous" because the performance of the processes are tied to business objectives

4. Why CMMI: Market demand Subcontractors providing custom software to companies creating solutions for the federal government must either themselves be following CMMI, or be covered by their client. All the parts of the software product delivered to the government must be following CMMI somewhere in the supply chain. Competition: Competing companies are utilizing CMMI for industry best practices and reaping the benefit of it Growing popularity in the market.

5. Why CMMI : Performance demand The purpose of CMMI is to improve upon the performance of the existing organizational standards, processes and procedures and NOT to redefine or them. CMMI is meant to help organizations improve on their “capability” to consistently and predictably deliver the products, services, and sourced goods their customers want, when they want them and at a price they're willing to pay. CMMI can be applied to create a process improvement solution appropriate to the context of each unique organization and can provide a path for an organization to achieve its performance goals.

6. Why CMMI: Process improvement 25 different process areas to cater comprehensive business process improvement solution Each process area is made of two kinds of goals, two kinds of practices, and a whole lot of informative information helping management to make strategies. 3 Constellations are defined to help improve a given business need. Currently there are three (3) constellations: Development: For improving the development of solutions. Acquisition: For improving the purchasing of products, services and/or solutions, and. Services: For improving delivery of services and creation of service systems (say, to operate a solution but not buy it or build it in the first place).

7. Conclusion Putting it all together: CMMI is a model for process improvement from which (astute) organizations will abstract and create process improvement solutions that fit their unique environment to achieve specific organizational goals.