Transitioning to the CMMISM-SE/SW-An evolutionary process

Many organizations have used the Software‐CMM® (Capability Maturity Model®) to improve their ability to produce better quality software on time and within budget. The Software‐CMM has mainly been adopted by companies marketing products or solutions that are software intensive, i.e., products or solutions where software is but one component, albeit an important one. Although there is empirical evidence that software process improvement has had a positive effect on the bottom line, there is a growing realization that software development needs to be coordinated with development of the total product. For this reason these organizations have eagerly followed the progress of the CMMI Project. With the release of the version 1.0 of the CMMISM‐SE/SW in August 2000, the focus has been on attempts to understand the new model and its implications for the organization. One road to understanding has been to organize training and to run pilot assessments. The biggest transition has been for those companies that choose the continuous representation of the CMMIM. This article will describe the history behind one company's decision to adopt the CMMIM, as well as their experiences of transitioning from the Software‐CMM to the continuous representation of the CMMIM. Three different assessment classes have been described for the CMMIM. This article will also discuss the experiences from pilot assessments in all three classes. Note: This paper is based on experiences with one organization. Because of business restriction the organization is called X. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Syst Eng 5: 32–40, 2002; DOI 10.1002/sys.10004