The Software Capability Maturity Model is developed for the organisations software process development, which is owned by Carnegie Mellon University for the U.S. Department of Defence. Due to certain issues in SW-CMM, they created the new process which is known as CMMI (Capability maturity model Integration). Here we can see various discussions about SW-CMM and CMMI.
KEY DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CMM AND CMMI
Both CMM and CMMI start with five set of structured levels in process maturity, based on Key Performance areas.
In the first level of CMM, an immature administration is not having any defined process and the expected output of the software project depends on the skills of employers and the project manager. But CMMI converts basic approaches like methods, notations, tools and re-active management into the process dependent by the team process for the required output.
In second level, some procedures for project management were repeated in CMM. They retrieve the previous experience and make effort in the new project. Cost, time resources are based on the previous projects. CMMI requires various disciplines in the organisation which are planning, monitoring and control, requirements, agreement, product and process quality assurance, configuration and measurement or analysis. With these kinds of disciplines, CMMI focuses on the key process of the various levels of activities.
In third level, practices were made to maintain the consistency of the organisation�s standard process in CMM. They test the staff�s knowledge in which they should have understanding and establishing procedures. CMMI improves the second level by describing the processes of standards, procedures tools and methods. But some of the additional organisational processes are included in it. They are Requirements development which is used for multi stake holders requirements; Technical solutions to measure the quality engineering and design; Verification is implemented to verify the product which is built correctly or not; Validation is implemented to validate the assessment techniques to ensure the right product is built; Risk management is involved in the process to detect prioritization, relevant issues and contingencies; Organisational training and process focus are involved to establish mechanism which is developed for more effective people and organisational frame work for process definition; analysis and solvent which is made to systemize the required assessment work; Organizational process definition is used by evolving the organisations asset which is treated as the process of persistent; Integrated project management is used to unify the teams and stale holders.
By using quantitative statistical settings, CMM attains control over the processes in the fourth level. They organize the wide measurement program to calculate the quality and productivity of the various projects. CMMI continues the same process as CMM but it expands the process to contribute the overall efficiency of the process. By improving organisational performance, there are some additional process level areas in the level four of the CMMI. They are as follows; Organisational process performance is implemented to improve the performance of the process by assigning setting norms and benchmarks within the organisation; the second one is quantitative project management, which is used to execute the project for statistical quality control methods.
In level five, CMM continues the process improvement in the software process by evaluating the quantitative tools. During optimization, the organisation identifies the strengths and weakness of the created practices. CMMI is also continues the improvisation of software process but it increments the innovation of technologies improvement.
CMM evaluates the maturity level of an organisation by examining the activities which are listed in the key performance area. CMM results by completing these activities. CMMI is also having the same activities but the difference is, when defining and measuring the Key Performance Area it results in oriented approach.
CMM concentrates on to complete the tasks or process which is assigned, it is not focused to develop the company�s architecture. CMMI solves this problem by getting the latest best practices of.
By applying various iterative principles, CMM motivates the organisations directly for some principles. Sometimes it is neutral, because it motivates and demotivates the principles for the organisation. In other ways CMM demotivates some of the principles directly. But CMMI is having the various alignments with the iterative principles. So CMMI motivates the organisation directly by applying various iterative principles.
COMPETITORS IMPROVED THE PROCESSES USING CMMI
The competitors improved the process of CMMI by implementing the various principles.
The some of the competitors that I have analysed are,
General motors Corporation,
Lockheed Martin Management and Data system,
Northrop Grumman Information Technology,
Thales Air Traffic Management (ATM).
From these competitors, CMMI process is improved by the following. CMMI focuses the process of an architecture which avoids the risks earlier with an iterative lifecycle. This requires various demonstrations which are balanced among the requirements, significant design decisions and life cycle plans in which the organisation needs to plan before the completion of sufficient resources for the whole development of the process. An iterative process is needed for the understanding of the problem and to create an effective solution for an effective plan that enables the balanced treatment of all stakeholders objective. To avoid rework later on, they addresses the major risks early to increase the predictability of the software process. By this, they enhanced the freedom of change by implementing the various tools in the process for round trip engineering.
Emphasizing the component based development; the competitors established a change management environment. Within an existing artificial frame work, they reduce the total number of source code which is generated by the human in custom development, the project teams must move on to the line of code mentality to the component based mentality. In the component which is having the set of cohesions with pre-existing lines of codes were executed in the format with a defined interface and the behaviour. To establish a change management environment, the developers of CMMI included the concurrent work flows as different teams on the shared artefacts.
They rigorously used the effective design notations in model based software processes. By semantically rich graphical and textual design notations, the developers provided the model-based approach such as UML. The models which is visualized with rigorous notations and process in which languages of machines allows the more important work than the human. To control the quality of an objective, they instrumented the software process as well. Using well defined measures, they directly evaluate the engineering artefacts and integrated in all the activities. The lifecycle work for both the products and the intermediate processes should be clearly processed.
During the intermediate artefacts of the architecture, they used the demonstrations which are based on the structure of the process. To avoid the earlier elimination of artificial defects, the developers� transit the current product artefacts into an executable demonstration, by this they stimulates the very earlier convergence of integration. The plans for software process are developed with the detailed levels. Each and every plan is discussed earlier and demonstrated continuously for the uses of the required software management process. Both requirements and architectures should be coinciding with the current level of details in project increment and demonstration. Use cases are the basic mechanism for the purpose of requirement, iteration, implementation and testing.
They always establish the planned scalable process which is highly configurable during the evaluation of the software process. There is no small or single process that is applicable for the software development projects. To a broad spectrum of applications, configurable framework of process is needed. Artefacts, metrics, workflows, check points and project management are the processes which are inherited by the best practices. By practising these processes effectively, the company might full fill the appropriate scale of economies and the safety return of the initial and over all investments. The process implementation of the each process should be optimised by allowing the functions of tailoring and specialization.
Organisation reporting CMMI benefits
General motors Corporation
In 1996, General motors corporation started providing information technology management and technical capability. After the starting of CMMI-style improvement approach, they used the appraisal tool to enable consistency, on-site data capture and real time data analysis. Finally the appraisal results are listed to senior management. The early implementation of the key processes resulted in the expected success. Organisational awareness and process compliance are measured by the company itself and collected product measures. By this they developed and executed the improvement plan in six months with basic view of analysis.
Lockheed Martin Management and Data system
Lockheed Martin Management and Data System (M&Ds) provides various kinds of process as in the software engineering. They started work in SW-CMM in 1995-2000. Later period from 2000 to 2002, they achieved maturity level 5 against the SW-CMM and CMMI models. Defect identification, prevention and removal are the process that they focussed to improve their quality. After this, the three year performance resulted in increase in productivity of the software by 30percentage, the cost of each unit of the software is decreased by 20 percentage and also the identification of defects costs decreased by 15percentage.
Northrop Grumman Information Technology
Northrop Grumman Information Technology focuses majorly in software intensive system. The Defence Enterprise Solution which is one of the business parts of Northrop Grumman Information Technology achieved a level 5 rating of CMMI model in 2002. They maintain various commitments to get the required quality and they continued the process improvement on their website with higher priorities. Tailored process, making corrections and detecting the organisation defects in all the process of the software development is the common measure of their standard process in CMMI. By this the organisation resulted in effectively in a very large project. The following diagram explains about the result in their defect density review.
Thales Air Traffic Management (ATM)
Thales group is a very large company with 65,000 employers in 30 countries in the field of electronics. Aerospace, Defence and Information Technology are the three major units of Thales Air Traffic Management. Global development process, programme management and system re-engineering are the basic solutions of the Thales ATM. Thales ATM have changed their processes from SW-CMM maturity level 3 to CMMI maturity level 4.
Improvements to CMMI
The paperwork and meetings in both the CMM and CMMI lead the organisation to the extension of their working time. By verifying and error detecting in each process makes the enlargement of working hours in the peak time. CMMI goes further than the CMM in object oriented process. Time consuming in the work hours is very difficult in CMMI. Other than that CMMI is an effective process in the Software development.
Conclusion
Thus the essay describes about the key difference between the two models, CMM and CMMI. Then the competitors improved the process using CMMI. Finally some modifications in the practices of CMMI are included.
