Discussion And Application Of The Software Capability Maturity Model (cmm)

The Capability Maturity Model for Software, after the ISO9001, has been the focus of software organizations. The organizations wonder how to understand the CMM correctly, whether the organizations which got the ISO9001 authentication just for fame will go after the CMM in the same way, and how to apply CMM to improve the ad hoc process of software organizations in China. At the same time, they dispute about whether every software organization deserves spending a lot for the CMM formal evaluation, and about the government how to guide our organizations for formal evaluation.According to these issues, in this paper, the history, the application, the framework and the evaluation of CMM will be introduced for the next discussion about the content and application of CMM.After that, the content of CMM will be discussed, and the misunderstanding of CMM will be analyzed to help the software organizations solve the chief problem they face, that is how to understand CMM thoroughly. The issues include the principles of CMM level, the process categories of CMM. the relations of KPAs in CMM level 2.and the perplexing terminology.From the view of authentication institution management, and of internal management of organizations as well, the problem of ISO9001 authentication is analyzed in three aspects of developing the discipline, protecting the discipline, and abiding by the discipline in this paper. Then based on the conclusion, the advices for government how to guide the CMM authentication are given.Based on the experience of SPI with CMM and the theory of CMM. IDEAL model and SEL model, a new SPI approach, which is more pertinent and usable, is brought forward to help the organizations to improve their process capability. In this approach, the issues on how to make the SPI consistent with business goals, how to do SPI based on the current process, how to tailor the CMM practices. how to develop good process documents, and how to implement the documented process is addressed. And this approach is available for improving the process capability of software organizations in China.In the end, my SPI practice in Sichuan Yinhai Software Company, and the relative harvest. Yinhai CMM2 process documents, is introduced.