This paper provides an overview of the latest version of the Capability Maturity Model for Software, CMM v1.1. Based on over six years of experience with software process improvement and the contributions of hundreds of reviewers, CMM v1.1 describes the software engineering and management practices that characterize organizations as they mature their processes for developing and maintaining software. This paper stresses the need for a process maturity framework to prioritize improvement actions, describes the process maturity framework of five maturity levels and the associated structural components, and discusses future directions for the CMM. Keywords: capability maturity model, CMM, process maturity framework, software process improvement, process capability, process performance, maturity level, key process area, software process assessment, software capability evaluation. 1 1 Introduction After two decades of unfulfilled promises about productivity and quality gains from applyi...

Systems development issues occupy a position of central importance in the information systems field and, indeed, much has been prescribed in the quest for successful systems development. However, given the well-documented "software crisis", success is far from guaranteed for systems development projects. Many researchers see the solution to the software crisis in terms of increased control and the more widespread adoption of rigorous and formalised system development methodologies. This paper first presents some arguments and pressures which support the use of methodologies. Some evidence of the literature bias which favours methodologies is also provided. However, the problems associated with the use of methodologies have not perhaps received as much attention in previous research. This paper identifies a number of arguments and pressures which question the value of methodologies, and reports the results of a field study which investigated the role of methodologies in practice. The critical perspective adopted in this paper shows that, contrary to the predominant literature view, the assumption that increased adoption of methodologies would help address the problems inherent in systems development is by no means proven.

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Software inspection can be an effective method for detecting faults throughout the software life cycle. Traditionally, software inspection has been done with all the participants present in a meeting room and the inspection done on paper forms and documents. This approach is expensive in terms of traveling, scheduling, human resources, premeeting preparation of material, and post-meeting recording of the inspection results. We propose a distributed collaborative software inspection, relaxing the requirement that all the participants be in the same room, providing automated support, and adding structure to the process. We have developed a prototype Collaborative Software Inspection (CSI) tool that allows geographically distributed participants to collaborate in the inspection and provides automated support for all inspection activities. In its trials, CSI has performed well and the participants have been able to use it comfortably to complete the inspection. This paper de...

this report is to review and summarize the empirical evidence thus far on the costs and benefits of SPI. The intention is that this review would be utilized to support the business case for initiating and continuing SPI programs, to aid in the selection amongst the alternative improvement paradigms, to make more accurate estimates of the costs and benefits of such efforts, and to help set and manage the expectations of technical staff and management. The need for such a review is supported by the results of two recent surveys that were conducted by the SEI. The first survey was administered to individuals at the National SEPG Conference in 1993 and at an SPI tutorial during the Software Engineering Symposium in 1993 [25]. The respondents represented organizations that had mature SPI programs. More than seventy percent stated that they need information on the benefits of SPI (by choosing the "very high" or "high" response category in terms of characterizing their needs), which was also ranked as the highest need of the respondents. This indicates a need for consolidation of the evidence on the benefits of SPI. The second survey solicited information from organizations that had conducted software process assessments between 1992 and 1993 [26]. The results indicate that 77% of the respondents "Strongly Agree" or "Agree" that SPI has taken longer than expected and 68% stated that SPI has cost more than expected. This indicates a need for information to help estimate the costs of SPI and to set and manage expectations from SPI. Two general paradigms to SPI have emerged, as described by Card [10]. The first is the analytic paradigm. This is characterized as relying on "quantitative evidence to determine where improvements are needed and whether an improvement initiative has b...

Testing is a critical component of the software development process. Organizations have not fully realized their potential for supporting the development of high quality software products. To address this issue we are building a Testing Maturity Model (TMM) to serve as a guide to organizations focusing on test process assessment and improvement. Testing is a critical component of a mature software development process. It is one of the most challenging and costly process activities, and in its fullest definition provides strong support for the production of quality software. In spite of its vital role in software development, existing maturity models have not adequately addressed testing issues nor has the nature of a mature testing process been well defined. We are developing a Testing Maturity Model to address deficiencies these areas. The TMM will complement the Software Engineering Institute's Capability Maturity Model (CMM) by specifically addressing issues important to test managers, test specialists, and software quality assurance staff. The TMM will contain a set of maturity levels through which an organization can progress toward testing process maturity, a set of recommended practices at each level of maturity, and an assessment model that will allow organizations to evaluate and improve their testing process.

Abstract—Understanding how to implement software process improvement (SPI) successfully is arguably the most challenging issue facing the SPI field today. The SPI literature contains many case studies of successful companies and descriptions of their SPI programs. However, the research efforts to date are limited and inconclusive and without adequate theoretical and psychometric justification. This paper extends and integrates models from prior research by performing an empirical investigation of the key factors for success in SPI. A quantitative survey of 120 software organizations was designed to test the conceptual model and hypotheses of the study. The results indicate that success depends critically on six organizational factors, which explained more than 50 percent of the variance in the outcome variable. The main contribution of the paper is to increase the understanding of the influence of organizational issues by empirically showing that they are at least as important as technology for succeeding with SPI and, thus, to provide researchers and practitioners with important new insights regarding the critical factors of success in SPI.

Over the last few years the Software Engineering Institute has participated in several workshops and site visits with maturity level 4 and 5 software organizations. This paper summarizes the lessons learned from those interactions with high maturity organizations, while preserving the anonymity of the organizations involved. Specific areas of interest include statistical process and quality control and product lines/families, but the observations cover a variety of engineering and management practices, including issues outside the scope of the Capability Maturity Model for Software. A survey was distributed to informally test the anecdotal observations about high maturity practices. 1. Introduction During the last several years, we have had the privilege of working with a number of high maturity software organizations, as measured by the Capability Maturity Model for Software (CMM ) [Paulk95], in workshops, conferences, assessments, and site visits. The Software Engineering I...

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This paper describes ten factors that affect organizational change in software process improvement initiatives based on the Capability Maturity Model or the ISO 9000 quality standards. It also assesses the relative importance of these factors and compares the findings with the results of previous research into organizational change in software process improvement. The paper is based on an analysis of published experience reports and case studies of 56 software organizations that have implemented an ISO 9000 quality system or that have conducted a CMMbased process improvement initiative.