NDIA Systems Engineering Division

Mature organizations use CMMI models as best practices to assess their process weaknesses, to identify necessary process improvements, and to manage progress toward achievement of their business objectives in a disciplined way that produces measurable value and tangible benefits. CMMI, by its very structure, is designed to be flexibly interpreted and implemented by diverse organizations in a wide variety of application domains to help fit their business strategies and environments.
Rather than use CMMI as a model for internal process improvement, some organizations have taken a “standards compliance” approach to CMMI, with achievement of CMMI maturity level ratings their primary objective.

This often leads to a “check the box” mentality focused on gathering evidence to pass an appraisal, with little emphasis on the value of the process outcomes or impact on improved project performance. This can result in lost business value, both to the organization and its customers, and has also sometimes resulted in poor business ethics and practices. The CMMI Steering Group and its partner, the Software Engineering Institute, have vigorously addressed these issues by implementing improvements to the CMMI product suite and performing rigorous quality assurance monitoring to protect the integrity of the CMMI product suite. Additional model improvements are in progress to clarify the expectations and objective