CMMI: Guidelines for Process Integration and Product Improvement

(2nd Edition)
By: 
Chrissis, Konrad, and Shrum
Published: 
2007
Pages: 
704
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Book Description

CMMI® (Capability Maturity Model® Integration) describes best practices for the development and maintenance of products and services across their entire lifecycle. By integrating essential bodies of knowledge, CMMI provides a single, comprehensive framework for organizations to assess their development and maintenance processes, implement improvements, and measure progress.

This book is a definitive reference for the most current release of CMMI (version 1.2). In the new edition, the authors have added tips, hints, and cross-references in the margins (in color) throughout the process areas to help you better understand, apply, and find more information about the content of the process areas. The book also now includes brief, insightful perspectives on CMMI written by people influential in the model’s creation, development, and transition. A new case study from Raytheon illustrates a real-world application of the model to a services organization. Whether you are new to CMMI or familiar with an earlier version, if you need to know about, evaluate, or put the latest version of CMMI into practice, this book is an essential resource.

The book is divided into three parts.

Part I offers the broad view of CMMI, beginning with basic concepts of process improvement. It describes the process areas, their components, and their relationships to each other. It explains the model’s two representations as well as paths to the adoption and use of CMMI for process improvement and benchmarking.

Part II, the bulk of the book, details the generic goals and practices and the twenty-two process areas now comprising CMMI. The process areas are organized alphabetically by acronym for easy look-up. Each chapter includes goals, best practices, and examples for a particular process area. The two CMMI representations are described so that you will easily see their similarities and differences and thereby be better able to choose the right approach for your organization.

Part III contains several useful resources, including CMMI-related references, acronym definitions, a glossary of terms, and an index.

Member Reviews: 

Review By: Dale Perry
12/31/2007This book provides a nice overview of the CMMI and the general customs and goals for each practice area. It provides a detailed introduction to the model, descriptions of the process areas, and their relationships to one another. However, some of the charts and graphs can be very busy and hard to follow at times. Several chapters provide useful information: Chapter 6 supplies some comparison information on CMMI and other process models; Chapter 7 details a simplified case study which offers ideas on how the process can be implemented in an organization.

If you are new to process improvement models and their implementation, the details in the book can be overwhelming. However, once you are familiar with the concepts of process improvement, this book will serve as a ready, technical reference for general process improvement utilizing the CMMI. The book also includes a useful map to the general process model and the various elements within the model. Many of the numerous tips and hints in the text reveal more insight into the various process steps than do the descriptions of the process steps themselves.

As with most books on the topic of CMMI, and process improvement in general, there is little information or instructions on how to actually implement and execute an activity. Also, it does not suggest or recommend how you would evaluate or measure your progress in the various process areas or specific practices.

Overall, this book is very useful for describing and understanding the CMMI process.

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